THE BENDABLE, POSEABLE JESUS OF NAZARETH REFUSES TO READ THE FINAL CHAPTER

By now it should be clear how events will turn out,
so turning a few more pages solves nothing. Look, all of us
are writing stories or acting in them, and no one, for sure, knows

how it all turns out. So I pick up books other people write
and read as long as I can stand it, but if it ends badly,
I’ll be pissed off, and if it ends well, I’ll just want more,

so why bother? Not even a bendable, poseable savior gets to see
the outcome of all the little dramas we walk through in a single day.
Dead authors are worse because, however prolific they were,

there are only so many books, so many words. A sad thing, especially
when the bile comes from the mouths of politicians and CEOs in 
an endless and stinking spill. And when they finish, there will be someone

to voice the sequel. And I won’t read the last chapter because
we live in stories still a long way from finding their endings.

Al Maginnes’ tenth full length collection, a new and selected poems entitled Fellow Survivors, has just been published by Redhawk Publications. Recent or forthcoming poems are in The Inflectionist Review, eratio, Talking River Review,  Asheville Poetry Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Stillhouse Review and many others. He lives in Raleigh NC and has recently retired from teaching after thirty-plus years.