Caprice, a poem

He enjoyed playing God;
Relished dabbling his hands in the subordinate
Valleys of the mortals, sculpting with wet clay
The fates and vocations of his creations.
With his powers he was
Earth-maker, land-shaker, and he engraved his
Whims in stone.

The sun burned his fingers
So he dipped it in milk and
Rolled it in crystalline glass,
Hung it back in the sky and wove
Clouds like a veil around
Its filmy light.

The stars did not suit his folly;
Thus he drew a black shroud over the speckled dots
And buried their empty fluorescent bodies
Under layers of heavy night.

The trees poked holes in the moon;
He punished them by
Snapping their branches in two and
Crumpling the dry leaves in his smoky palm,
Staining the grass with the black litter of their blood.

The flowers were too sweet so he waved away
Their milky perfume with a bone-handled fan,
And trimmed down the rosebushes until
Crabgrass sprang through the dry earth.

The night was too blue
Hence he turned it into the sea
And the fish leapt too high
So they were banished from the waves
And died of asphyxiation on hot sand.

He led me back to the canvas and had me touch
My hand to the cracking texture of the paint;
“Do you see it?” he asked. “Everything is perfect.”
I took my hands away,
And my fingers were stained a heavy red.
Around me, lies breathed venom into the air,
The entire canvas a viscous shade of black.