Ex Cathedra, I

Ex nihilo

A man will collapse upward
Gasping, from sleep,
In his early twenties.

The way God pulled Adam
From the mud, heaving
Like a hooked trout

Finger of spectral light
Burning the nerve-glutted
Underside of the blood-red gill.

A man will gasp up
In his bed from a pool
Of seminal slime

Into a silent world of light.
With wide cataracted eyes
Blinking like a newborn,

Full of the knowledge of his will:
To walk back down the stairs
Toward the light.

It was his choice to rise from the dead.
Darwin’s fish has not yet realized
What a fool he was to take that step.