from the book of worms

by Joseph Paul Caramagno

It is not the voice of god.
It is this record skipping
Puzzling your ears.

The angel sang to the worms.
He sang to the worms as he sang to the Galileans
But only the worms were listening.
So he sent a fisherman
To paralyze the industry—

And the curses were flung
Like hooks, humiliating
The bodies of suffocating fish everywhere.

It’s just business:
Eventually, technology
Feeds the hungry,
Explains suffering.
 
The faithful left their boats
And their lines cast; wanted to know
What it’s like to be led; to be fed
What they had not earned.

The beach was fish-littered.
The angel spoke through the earth 
So the worms heard him in their burrows first,
Weeping, singly. 
Only they noticed when it stopped, and the gates
Clicked shut behind him.

You are playing the record,
More slowly now, and backwards.
You think there is a message;
That god is speaking to you
In your language.

It doesn’t matter
How many loaves were in the basket.
The sea was drained of fish.
In a week, the poor were starving,
And the meek were already dead.
Made into a mockery, they asked,
“Why is He silent when we need him?”
And the fisherman came
Willingly to his execution,
With the same question.
But that was not the miracle.

In the pink fog, at the seashore
A lamentation arose from the sand,
It was not the earth singing,
But a thousand worms spilling from its depths
Crawling into the mouths,
of rotting fish.

How can we sleep?
How can we slight fate?
When there is still
That song in the world

Skewed. Forsaken.