Bad Theology

Written in December '21

the deer humped the dog because
two people ate a piece of fruit
from a forbidden tree

really, that’s the answer
you’re going with?

and here I thought a simpler
explanation was in order,
like the deer was horny and
humped the dog because it
looked like a deer

stimulus-reaction, cause-effect

but no, it’s because two mythical
people ate a mythical fruit and
got kicked out of a mythical garden

because that’s the simpler explanation,
Ockham’s razor embodied

sorry folks, that’s bad theology

a simpler explanation that doesn’t
acknowledge the divine is the
real bad theology, the apologists
tell me in response

and I’m like, why?

why does there need to be
something beyond the pale?

a deer humping a dog is strange,
but nature is weird despite
being somewhat uniform,
somewhat knowable

so go ahead and eat that pomegranate,
because a girl stuck in Hades isn’t
controlling the seasons

and the very real, very wretched nature
of humankind isn’t making the deer hump the dog

bad theology produces bad fruit,
and it’s time humankind learned that