William Stobb
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Creation Story

My therapist and a woman I love
keep telling me to be present
so I wash last night’s dishes
attentively at six-thirty this morning.
Hot water steams the window view
of light beginning to occupy the maple.
Or permeate. Gold. Or suffuse. Locate
waning moon—see that rose
to indigo spectrum?
It’s that planetary feeling:
quirk of conscious matter in time
a Mayfly sees one sunrise Drew
turned fourteen broke his arm & died
of Ewings in two orbits
inside everything exploding
between big bang and flat pool of entropy
cells cluster stars in a vastation
expansion out of control.
                                              Some god
could be middle-aged staring at the swirl
in the aquarium he filled yesterday
maybe waiting for a tinder swipe
trying not to start drinking yet nope
it’s barely light out see?
How quickly presence slips away?
I’m off in speculation and being
distracted I take my plate grip
for granted and it slides--
white ceramic floral pattern dives flat
don’t tell me time isn’t bendy
because it feels like an hour watching it
fall. I think of all the things I’m breaking
decorum speed limits vows then
it hits the tile and clanks.
It just clanks and bounces and
wobbles wa-wa-waaa to rest
intact on the floor. Hashtag blessed.
I don’t know how it didn’t
break. Chemicals wash my insides
I feel a sudden clean and close my eyes
arms wide face the sky in relief
of fate avoided
                            but then there’s Drew
in my mind the night before they amputated
his arm biking one last time
down the steep highway
toward the river.
I pick up the plate
drop it again
and this time I get a new universe.

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William Stobb is the author of six poetry collections, including You Are Still Alive (42 Miles Press) and the National Poetry Series selection, Nervous Systems (Penguin). His work is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Colorado Review, and Glacier. Stobb works on the editorial staff of Conduit and Conduit Books & Ephemera, and the creative writing faculty of the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse.