Imitation Entries Week 6

Entry 1: From The Missing Child by John Poch ... which by the way, I think, is my favorite in the collection. Wish I'd written it.

"The mother dreams she is her own neighbor/ who has a living daughter. The father is driven/ livid by men in suits and women in jewels."

I'm a child missing in a department store
or zoo, how I remember it, too big for me
like the clothes living in mommy's closet except
the Japanese vest from when she was small
like me, my mom says "BJ's" but it doesn't really matter.
I just remember hiding behind suits
from my mother and father, too,
because they were alligators in people
suits, living and breathing but eating
our neighbors at night and I'm the only one
who knows. In my dreams, we are a normal
family, my mom, not an alien, but a woman
in jewels, my dad in a suit sans the Elvis
tie he wears to every funeral, my sisters
like me and I'm no longer a broken bird
but a daughter. My alligator parents find me
sleeping by a desk by customer service,
tell Sheree in the red polo "thank-you"
and while i'm driven home, i am cursed at
because alligator parents don't know
human moms don't use up all the bad words
from the get. they wait til you are old
and angry enough to understand them,
wait til you turn into a teenager
with your own tough skin raised in spots
from accidental oil spills and sharp fangs that spit
acid and salt seasoned words at parents
for fucking them up just right.

Entry 2: from John Poch's The Blue Angels
"Did God make them?/ They blanket, carpet, cover us/ at the air show. Decorators/ with a vengeance. So this is why/ the sky is blue."

The sky is blue because God said so.
There is rain because God's garden needs water,
or He saw His kids fighting, saw them cutting down
trees or something, stop asking for details,
He just was crying. That's just how it is.
The snow is His dandruff, covering us
in a blanket, a carpet, decorating our cities
with His glorious waste and forgiveness;
there's no Head and Shoulders in Heaven-
'cept His, of course, He has a head. Shoulders, too.
Dandruff is like vengeance too though- like,
gross and stuff. Thunder is God bowling,
or beating His wife, or yelling at people
who beat their wives, making them feel bad.
Night happens because God needs a nap. Dark
happens because God said so. And Jesus is in
time out, in the bathroom, with the lights off.
Of course God has indoor plumbing. God lets
the sun shine because His favorite color is yellow.
It's cloudy because God thinks we need a blanket
for when it's cold. And it's cold because
He's mad at us, and He said so. And then,
of course... What's lightning? Everybody knows that one.
God loves to disco.