Creation Story

We drank nothing but fast moving water, 

ate only berries we’d seen birds eat. 

We were trying to honor our new world.

We juggled eggs but kept dropping them, 

so we juggled time instead, which caused 

tears in the time-space continuum.

The hair of a few turned white overnight,

others saw strange animals in the sky, 

first an emu, then a snarling kangaroo.

To tell stories, we gathered around 

a pit and took turns dancing with fire. 

Snapping turtles had not been invented yet. 

Nor the Northern Lights. Nor a reliable 

method of counting that involved 

more than ten dirty fingers and ten dirty toes.

Climbing a tree was a prayer to apples. 

Chopping down a tree was a prayer 

to fuel, which allowed us to dance longer 

with fire, especially on moonless nights. 

To make war, we hopped in tight 

circles waving a sharpened stick at the sky. 

To make a child, a boy kissed his hand 

then touched the face of a weeping girl.  

---

Front Yard Sandbox

What lousy children to leave their bulldozers

and trucks outside to weather winter alone 

also trolls and Legos and this pink princess set 

all things plastic and many things rustable 

what lousy children to not guard against ice 

and thaw and rain dripping and feral cats 

crapping above and worms plotting below 

with their seven cold hearts and what lousy 

parents to fail to teach pick up your mess skills 

and values like thrift and empathy and how 

to save five army men from frostbite 

and plastic dinosaurs from malnutrition 

also likely never fretting about their own dead 

parents planted sixty cold miles north

and what a lousy son I’ve been when did I last 

spend ten minutes with my buried mother 

and ply her with silk flowers and how long

has it been since I paused to play like a child

how long since I picked up a plastic horse 

like this purple beauty and blew sand from 

her eyes and galloped her around the front 

yard like Pegasus are you happy Sister Horse 

and isn’t this sunset beautiful like a friendly 

fight between Van Gogh and Monet 

who will win never mind my money is on 

Joan Mitchell so I ooh and ahh about 

the epic apocalyptic colors then I tuck 

this horse in beside a maimed Barbie 

and dig till I find Barbie’s missing leg

and plant it above them both like a flag

on the moon dear lunar orb dear guardian 

of mysteries shed light on our messes oh 

how we need someone to comfort us in  

the dead of night don’t you dare fly out of orbit

---

If Lake Bonneville Returns

Water will once again cover three mountain 

states and drown thousands of tumbleweed 

towns like this one, neighborhoods punctuated   

by trampolines and grills, lemonade stands 

and drowsy cats. If Lake Bonneville returns, 

I’ll bivouack in the desolate foothills 

with my beloved and stare at roiling waves, 

wondering how much higher can brackish 

waters rise? If Lake Bonneville returns, 

sea monsters will stage a come-back, 

or our belief in them, and we’ll start seeing fins 

and tentacles everywhere. If Lake Bonneville 

returns, we’ll triple our burnt offerings 

to the greedy gods of mishap and worship, 

the white-faced ibis bright as a priest. 

If Lake Bonneville returns, I’ll glide half 

a mile in a stolen canoe to where my house

sits under the waves. If chubs and catfish 

refuse to bite, maybe I’ll drag up old love 

letters, a sprinkler head, my wife’s mungy 

shirt. If Lake Bonneville returns, I’ll dream 

of electricity and the Great Before, how 

we used to wile away Sunday afternoons, 

perfecting gravies and ragus, then climb 

the stairs to our bedroom to fashion 

children after ourselves. If Lake Bonneville 

returns, we’ll recall the naïve creatures 

we used to be, snuggling up with a heaven 

of podcasts for a late morning run. 

What hubris, to stare across acres of benign 

sunlight, into the future, not once 

imagining the terrible rains that will come.

---

LANCE LARSEN, former poet laureate of Utah, grew up in the West, mowing lawns, delivering newspapers, and dreaming of catching Bigfoot on film. His sixth poetry collection, Making a Kingdom of It, appeared in December with Tampa. His awards include a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from Ragdale, the Anderson Center, Sewanee, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He teaches at Brigham Young University and likes to fool around with aphorisms: “A woman needs a man the way a manatee needs a glockenspiel.” Sometimes he juggles.

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