Pebbles worn down by water

When god first stuck his tongue down
the throats of adam and eve he left
a jagged shard of rock to screech
and yowl and make a fuss over paradise

From that day to this none of us has ever
shut up
            We’ve developed a complex too from
the rough fatherly frenching a compulsion
to invent new forms of it continually without
even trying or thinking how they might be
received by those so unfortunate
as to share the rock with us

Which was first do you reckon
A laugh from a joke or from someone busting their ass

A hoarse whisper cain confiding to his brother’s
body just why he killed him
                                A song or even
a prayer offered up to a god who’d forsaken us
so early gone out to grab some smokes
as our house burned down around us

Whatever the order the laughs all came down
like lemmings to the sea in a wave

We sit here now
children with our toys strewn around us like bodies
wailing that we don’t have more