Kolob

They say God lives
near a planet called
Kolob

that one year
there is one thousand
years here

that it is within
the Milky Way
Galaxy

that it is near
Sagittarius A*
at the Galactic Center

that is to say
God’s throne is
at the gravitational

center of all
life in our galaxy
believe it or not

that the earth
is only six thousand
years old

that scientists
are God-hating
atheists

that humans didn’t
evolve from
monkeys

that God doesn’t
engage in any
monkey business

that the end
of the world
is coming

that we should
rejoice at
the thought

that the earth will
burn, be cleansed
from sin

that there is
no need to
fear

that we need
not worry
about our dying planet

that it is all
a part of
God’s plan

that there is
no smoke,
the car is not on fire

and there is indeed
a driver at
the wheel

that we aren’t
just a troop
of monkeys

locked in a
hot car in a
Costco parking lot

in the middle of July
as the mighty Kolob
turns on its gilded axis

while we idle, baked,
fur sticking to
faux vinyl seats

in our little monkey
2008 Saturn Astra
saddled with several

hundred thousand
miles with no
end in sight

while so many
seconds drip down
our fur

while we fiddle
around with
the nobs

on the radio
tuning our monkey ears
to the correct monkey frequency

so we can barely hear
what we’ve suspected
all along:

that oooh oooh
aaaah aaaah

that oooh oooh
aaah aaah.

 

Jace Einfeldt is a writer from Southern Utah. He is the fiction editor at the Arkansas International. His recent work appears or is forthcoming in Hobart After Dark, BULL, X-R-A-Y, the Glacier, and Aethlon, among others.