I arrange my computer files
by “Date Created”
so I know what order to celebrate their birthdays.
But then I see the option,
dangling at the bottom of a drop-down menu,
to sort by “Date Modified,”
and I see God, face propped in one palm,
clicking absent-mindedly at a mouse—
wireless, I’m sure—
right-clicking my name
within some folder inside a folder—
the directory of all existence—
and viewing my properties.
That’s when I wonder
what date I was last modified.
Was it the day I stood on the sidewalk’s warts
of the university pavilion, my mom calling
to say my cousin didn’t wake up?
The chilly May morning I was handed a diploma display?
Two weeks later when I first clocked in?
Or in a tower on campus, my last first kiss?
Maybe my last change
came silent and unnoticed:
last night as I slept,
god eyed the black text of my existence
running in lines across his bright monitor—
high definition, I’m sure—
and decided I’d sound better
if I lost that showy adjective
on the third line,
or that I’d roll better off his tongue
at those low-key poetry readings in heaven,
if he took away a prominent verb,
if he rearranged my middle two stanzas,
or, in his signature fashion,
he did less telling and more showing.
Maybe in the wet gray morning light
of this early September Friday,
God’s fingers flitted across his keyboard—
LED backlit, I’m sure—
then clicked a floppy disk icon to save his changes to me
just before I awoke to the soft drum of my alarm.
