What If God Had Said It Differently

by Christina Stoddard

Let there be ignitions and kindling.

Let us have supermarket birthday candles,
a cigarette glow, phosphorescent flares,
a handgun’s muzzle.

Let the world wrench free. Bring on
the cock-crow of atoms colliding,
arrows tipped

with burning magnesium.
Let there be cruise missiles
and burnished metal engines.

Let there be stars and cooking fires,
chandeliers and gilded walls.

When the heart quickens,
let there be dawn

over the blind trees
and the diamond sky.

CHRISTINA STODDARD’s debut collection, Hive, won the 2015 Brittingham Prize in Poetry and is forthcoming from the University of Wisconsin Press. Recent work appears in Tupelo Quarterly, DIAGRAM, and Spoon River Poetry Review. Christina lives in Nashville, TN, and is the Managing Editor of a scholarly journal in economics and decision theory. christinastoddard.com.