From WTP Vol. VI #3

God Does His Own Laundry
By Joshua Jones

Because heaven has no Sears, no Tide—
for God’s sake—no running water,
His garments must be washed by hand,
a tricky venture at first, one doctor
of the church has observed in his magnum opus

De Sarto Dei, because His hands
have neither dimension nor substance, yet
must scrub with such unmeasured force
to sunder any cloth. Thus, He
wears fabric made from strands of nothing

spun in the celestial loom. Seamless
as Himself, this floor-length robe, when dipped
into the sea of glass around
the throne in the sight of the twelve elders,
the seven churches, and hosts of heaven

who ever adore Him, makes no ripple,
and, only loading Himself with one
such piece of clothing, He must complete
the task nude. To those who dare
watch, it appears as though He approaches

the shore, loosens His cincture, and vanishes,
reappearing in freshly wrung apparel.
And while the magisterium does not assent,
the same doctor attests that in one
such moment, one third of heaven fell.

Joshua Jones received his MFA from UMass Boston and is pursuing a PhD at the University of North Texas. His poems have appeared in The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, and The Windhover, among others. He has written book reviews for The American Literary Review, The Boiler, and The Breakwater Review.