All God’s children

When God was finished assembling the world
she brought the leftovers home.

"Look children, you can make a world,
a little world, just like Mummy."

She gave them safety scissors
and snatched a moment to herself in the bath.

They cut out jagged pink skies, orange chimneys,
aubergine domes and invented a town with houses.

"Can we have some people Mummy, please?
Just a few, we’ll be good and go to bed on time."

Being a working mother and always guilty
she gave in, reached out from the bath

plucked a handful and placed them
in the cardboard pen the children had made.

"Don’t trap them there darlings, build a bridge
or make them a boat or something," she said.

They made a lighthouse but forgot about a sea
or a river, or a boat, stairs were too difficult.

They got hungry before the bridge was finished
and God, in her dressing gown and fluffy slippers,

made them her signature ambrosia
with extra nectar because it was Sunday.

All God’s children

The children sometimes forget to feed their little people,
God reminds them when she remembers.

The little people have been trying to climb the wall
they are devoted to escaping the cardboard city.

They believe that they will be free one day.
None of them believe in God.