Job Poem by Katha Pollitt

Worse than the boils and sores
and the stench and the terrible flies
was the nattering: Think.
You must have done something.
Things happen for a reason.
What goes around.

His life swept off in a whirlwind of camels and children!
Still, he knew enough to shut up
when his skin cleared pink as a baby's
and overnight lambs blanketed the burnt fields.
People even said he looked taller
in his fine new robes: You see?
When one door closes, two doors open.

Nobody wanted to hear
about the rain or its father
or leviathan slicing the deeps
at the black edge of the world
under the cold blue light of the Pleiades.

The new sons were strong and didn't ask difficult questions,
the new daughters beautiful, with glass-green eyes.