For every snowflake that falls on the tundra
there is a package on Amazon’s conveyor belt
in Seattle or Arlington
with a trinket or a gold watch or a
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle
that someone will open up to find
disappointment
because it is not what they thought
so they send it back and get hit with
a restocking fee
and complain to Amazon or VISA or
Mastercard
about how badly they’ve been treated

For every time a man has whistled at
a pretty girl on a street corner and
got nothing to show for it
another pornographic website pops up
in cyberspace showing
how big your dick can be
or how easy it is to get women
or offering you cyberchats that will
change your life
so now cyberspace
is almost as big as the universe God created
on the first day

For every grain of sand on the beach
there is a drop of water in the ocean
for every drop of water in the ocean
there is a piece of junk plastic swirling around
in the Great Pacific garbage patch
a vortex bigger than Texas
for every piece of junk –
straws, Coke bottles, seat covers, sandwich bags
there is an idiot throwing them in the ocean
thinking to himself
‘this is no big deal
It’s just a straw’
for every idiot who throws a straw in the ocean
there is another idiot who thinks
the first idiot should be taken out and shot
so that humanity is divided in half
into two groups of idiots that
hate each other
this is part of God’s plan

then a poet comes along
a real wise guy and says
there are more idiots out there than
plastic junk in the ocean
than grains of sand on the beach
than drops of water
than snowflakes
than stars in the sky
all that is untrue
God, in His wisdom
when He made the universe
saw to it that there will always be more stars
than idiots
we are constantly discovering
that the universe keeps getting bigger
as our telescopes improve

so the poet‘s claim gets weaker and weaker
it is almost like God is saying
‘I made you in my image and likeness
but I’m never going to let you gang up
on Me
I’ll keep both sides of you fighting
each other
until you reach a critical mass ’
so He
in His wisdom
one day may just
scrap this universe and start over
make another one
with sand and stars and galaxies and constellations
and make wiser poets out of us
who look up and see God
smiling like a Happy Meal