Vicki nyman

Job Abridged

1.)

Job knew death in the Biblical sense.
A lover reeking of other men’s flesh. 
The stench, a shrill note blowing
the fuse of his olfactory instrument.

2.)

He kissed his stone daughters. Stroked his concave eldest son.
The youth’s chest, coffin to his crushed bones.

3.)

Job’s skin, infested with boils.
Like fallen angels,
still smoldering.

4.)

Job’s friends arrived.
Each a talking beast yoked to his teleology of choice.
Brazenly casting lots beside the ankles of Being.

5.)

Said one, “Clearly Job deserves his fate.
THE LORD, just.
THE LORD, blameless.
This one’s on you, bruh.”

6.)

Said the next, “Job was born under a bad star.”
(Others would later say this of Christ.)
“No meaning to be found in this Sturm und Drang.”

7.)

We are called homo sapiens,
the know-ers.
By nature, driven to confine
the agony of others within
explanations compact enough to fit
inside our brains, the size of baby
cauliflowers.

8.)

Job scratched his blisters with a stick.

9.)

Job demanded, “Why?”

10.)

God feigned disinterest,
riffing about animals,
as if Job was a child on the primordial
knee.

As if this was the first intergalactic trivia contest,
hosted by none other than
the never-to-be defeated Jeopardy champion of the universe,
OMNISCIENCE.

11.)

Job wasn’t well-versed in Biology or Botany.
Physics. Physiology.
Human psychology.

You name it.
He didn’t know it.

How could he be expected to navigate the Dark Web of moral minutiae
that governs interactions between THE IMMORTAL and man?

12.)

God rested His case.

13.)

Job cried uncle.

14.)

Job prayed, “Pardon my stupidass friends.”

15.)

Job prayed, “Put my words in a book.”