I am God
--written on a tarot card by the serial sniper

and so is the cat, black
fur coating the chairs, sinking
into the places he's torn in the fabric

and so is the red kettle
boiling, calling someone from sleep
just in time to turn down the flame

and so is the one-eyed hanged
man from Fortune's deck, dealt
by children on a rain-veiled Saturday

well after the cartoons have ended,
and so are the tables wobbling on aged
legs, and the leaves dripping clear

water despite the fiery colors -- nothing
stains -- and the desk and homburg and the old
crow on the power lines eyeing the dead squirrel

hungrily and the voice on the radio giving
news of the world, yourself included Mr. God,
hearing it like myself as the words

scroll down the page: Desist --
you cannot uncreate everything, your scope
contains only one life at a time, at the very least

the ruins like eventual
witnesses will outlive your boast.

Nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize in 2002, Tobias Seamon's work has appeared previously at The Mississippi Review, The Pedestal Magazine, and Strange Horizons. A contributing writer with the web-based broadsheet The Morning News, he lives in upstate New York and co-edits Whalelane, an online journal of the arts. His previous appearances in Strange Horizons can be found in our Archive. To contact Tobias, email trowsea@yahoo.com.