IN THE beginning, God watched Woman create the heavens and the earth.
Now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was over the surface of
the deep and the spirit of Woman was hovering over the waters.
God said, “Let there be light,” and Woman gave birth to the sun, her body home
to the child who prayed in the church of her womb. God saw that it was
good, curled into the womb of Woman to rest—the first day.
God said, “Let there be ocean and sky,” and Woman cried a blue floor for heaven,
wrung the sweat out of her skin, drained the wine from her veins to fill the
hollowed soil, and God saw that it was good—the second day.
God said, “Let the land bear fruit,” and Woman pressed her thumbs into the
opening of her own body, a trinity of unplanted seeds at the root of her
thighs, a reaping of life, between the seasons of rebirth and bloom, and
God saw that it was good—the third day.
God said, “Let there be a moon.”
Woman said, “I am tired my sun.”
The fourth day.
God said, “Let life fill the ocean.”
Woman said, “There is already life.”
The fifth day.
God said, “Let life fill the earth.”
Woman said, “I am already here.”
God said, “Let men rule over all the fish in the sea, and the birds in the sky.”
Woman said, “Haven’t I taught you better? You rule only yourself.” The sixth
day.
God is divinity dressed in the tender skin of mortals replete
with organs seasoned by dust.
God drinks the milk from Woman’s breasts to baptize his parched tongue
because even God has a mother. Woman calls him son but God does not
give a chance for Woman to name her own creations so he named himself God, but God is not God.
God is just a man with a god-complex, and Woman has heard this story before.
Woman says, “Don’t you see how easily I can rewrite this story?
How you are God only because I prayed to you?
How you are immortal for only as long as the children I bear believe in you?
You have swallowed my sun and named it your own but don’t you know
the sun tastes better at night? The sun remembers me even when he is warming
the other side of the earth,
isn’t that a child’s love for his mother?
Woman says, “Don’t you know women cannot come from men
but men can only come from women?
Don’t mistake the womb of a woman for the rib of a man.
Don’t forget that I gave you life and I can take it back.
Woman says, “I have felt pain that lasts longer than our bodies do.
You cannot fold this body up to make room for yours. You cannot fill this body up
because this body was never empty. You fingered the creases of my flesh, but never felt
me. You scrutinized the angles of my shadows, but never saw me. You swallowed my
echoes but never heard me.
This is the story before man plagiarized it.
Before man misread his entitlement for enlightenment.
Before man made a God out of himself,
and deleted every line in the poem
where I was making all the miracles.”