Show and Tell

This is the wave of gravel where she let me off on the edge of my
life.
       This is the gleaming edge, past agencies and scrap.                                                                                                                           This is the
edge of a blighted field where God idles his tractor.
                                                                                 He thinks he's a
thunderhead in drought.
                                      You think God doesn't have a tractor?
                                                                                                  You think he doesn't have a blighted field?
                                              This is what he's thinking:
not yet, not yet.
                         Look, there's another panic button lying on the
ground.
             Look, here comes another wave of gravel.
                                                                                Look, here
comes night.
                     You think God can't give up?

—James Galvin

Originally published in the Summer 2002 issue of Boston Review