God As Eyewitness

It’s been said that the novel

Records changes in the lives

Of its imagined persons,

But records seems the wrong verb

In this fictional context.

Creates changes in those lives

Feels a little more like it.

Nonetheless, sort of charming

As an image, isn’t it?

Imagine the novelist

Hunched over like Joseph Smith

With his scry stone in his hat

Or like a microscopist

Peering down and taking notes

On the little lives below,

Not creating anything,

Just recording the changes

Imagined persons go through.