Two Poems by Jarett Greenstein
August 15, 2023
All-Knowing
Possibility 1: The first time I told God to go fuck himself was when I was seven. And when I was ten, I learned we liked to label things and to shine lights in places where our imagination casts darker shadows. When I was thirteen, I thought maybe we came up with God because we couldn’t stand to look at our shit flinging neighbors and stomach that maybe we weren’t so far off. Possibility 2: And it was when my heart felt like it was boiling over when I thought maybe he is out there. That’s when I learned how God was born. That maybe he is the scaffold onto which that impossible gratitude has been cast. Because we took nature to be deaf and our neighbor to be equal. Possibility 3:
grownups
when we went wandering over watermelon waterfalls of overgrown— when we went worrying over orange rinds remiss in indelibly cauliflower cheeks of our overgrown— when we went walloping baseball bats at attacking bumblebees buzzing sticking stingers outside on our overgrown— when we went whining to the tulips where we tore them from fucked earth— baby i’m sorry.
About Jarett Greenstein
Jarett Greenstein received his B.A. from Michigan State University, where he studied Professional Writing and English.