You ask me, what gender is God? I don't know. I've never undressed God. undressing God: First the clouds, taken from the morning; Then, taking glass and leaving its serene transparency Taking black and leaving space a hollow between open arms Taking bones and leaving all dignity Taking skin and leaving only a river, a sacred turbulence pouring from life to life Taking machines and leaving panting struggling flowers elbowing up like all of New York City were only rocks Taking the dark parts of Mengele's eyes leaving an old white skeleton on the beach skeleton with wind looking in and drifting through Taking all that hides behind the cloak of memory and bringing it, vulnerable as food, crumbling, and powerful as dirt to the place where it can flower receiving beauty from its old decay Taking the wind and leaving something trembling on the long-shadowed hills and giving a sad and musical shout Raising a new life from the graveyard of hopes that came up before a glassy old cruelty and died Taking each single darkness and letting its hot anguish bleed out to the cold and serene night The world would be, will be washed in time and new as after rain. Dreaming hard with your back against the bark of a tree you can see the shimmering, undressing God. ______________________________________________ God is always dressed, only humans are naked.