Three Poems by Heikki Huotari

Guiding God

At God’s request, I throw the ball. God brings the ball back wet. I palm the ball and swing my arm. God searches where He thinks the ball should be. The evening and the morning are the seventh day. God watches closely and I say, Remember, God, what happened last time, but of course He doesn’t as He doesn’t have to as He has a plan and when God lunges at me I didactically explain to God that I’m on public property then throw a rock at God and miss and hit God’s owner’s picture window. I say it was self defense.

Mining Irony

I’m tickled schizophrenic by The Son I sent to earth and feel self-conscious till I notice mine is not the only footprint in the cake and when I notice mine is not the only footprint in the cake I’m righteously indignant because I invented cake so I can do with cake whatever I may please and now the worldwide web contends one anaconda bite kills twenty people but it doesn’t say if those unlucky people should be naked in a cake or in a pie and now I hear the irony that I rely on has been discontinued—I hope I don’t outlive my supply.

By the Book

If I knew The Perp was second-coming I would not have baked a cake. The Perp is maybe faking having trouble breathing and/or taking lightly my authority so I might in accordance with the procedure fear for my own life and in accordance with procedure might say, Drop it, to the microphone on my lapel and at the hearing might be wearing my dress uniform and saying for the record that I thought He had a gun.

Heikki Huotari is a retired professor of mathematics. In a past century, he attended a one-room country school and spent summers on a forest-fire lookout tower. His poems appear in several journals, most recently in Diagram and Puerto del Sol, and he’s the winner of the 2016 Gambling the Aisle chapbook contest.

Image: twu.tennis-warehouse.com

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