Mike Corum is completing his MFA in poetry  at the University of Nebraska. His poetry has appeared in Yellow Medicine Magazine, The Iowa Laurel, Wordland3 (UK), About Place Journal, and Uno Kudo. He is a native Iowan with deep roots in his state. He is especially proud of his 3 grown children, all making a go of careers in the arts. He enjoys the art and magic of storytelling and attempts to capture this wonder in his poetry.

God Gets His Start
By Mike Corum

I draw a large circle with a piece of chalk on the First
National Bank’s outer wall. I crawl through the hole,
help myself to bundles of cash. By now, it’s raining

outside–the circle is washed away, I’m trapped inside.
Alarms sound, police rush in. They’re all drawn of chalk.
I erase them with my hands, walk out with the money.

I catch a cab to my girlfriend’s apartment. I find her in bed
with another guy. He is a chalk outline. My girlfriend is
a chalk outline. Everything is chalk but me. I can’t be sure.

I scratch my head, it dissolves into powder. I redraw it twice
the size as before. I’m now the smartest man in the universe
and invent flesh-and-blood people to stop this nonsense.

This is how God got started.