The first poem
of the month
has a provocative
title, and suggests,
provocatively,
that Jesus was
joking. He made
us think he was
dead and then
rose again on
the third day,
the first day
of April, to
shoot hoops
with his friends.
Most everyone was
totally fished in.
You would be.
But of course,
the day we
celebrate Easter,
if we celebrate
Easter, is arbitrary
and changes every
year depending on
some mysterious
force in the calendar
universe, which,
in and of itself,
is a kind of April Fools
joke. Jesus was not
born on December
the twenty-fifth
and he did not rise
from the grave on
April the first.
No one really knows
when he was born
or when he rose
from the grave–
and for this and
for a bunch of other
stuff, he has been
laughing at us
for a very long time now.
michael jarmer 