Allegory  |  Kiki Petrosino

Dante wants to know God, but not what God knows. So he invites God on a Hawaiian vacation. Dante makes a schedule. He will meet God at the Honolulu International Airport, downstairs, at Baggage Carousel Six. Because Dante is a man of smoothness, he will insist on carrying God's luggage, His denim jacket, His umbrella, & His Shamrock Edition iPod with Bono's signature & the final digit of pi laser-engraved on the back. From the Airport, Dante will drive God (in a white Trans Am with a removable T top) down Like Like Highway, through the palm-tree-filled center of Honolulu, & into the covered entranceway of the Ohana Island Family Hotel. Dante will wear a charcoal business suit with double-vents on the jacket. This is because Dante is an old school motherfucker, & also because Dante knows that God appreciates the classics, such as double-vents. Dante will treat God to dinner on the North Shore. God's mahi mahi will arrive in a banana leaf. There will also be poi. Dante will eat little tonight; he is watching God cut His mahi mahi into pieces to feed the large hibiscus flower in the center of the table. The hibiscus flower has not been fed in days. It swallows God's mahi mahi & the banana leaf it arrived in. Meanwhile, an orange bird-of-paradise in the same vase snaps a fallen fragment of mahi mahi from the tablecloth. The bird-of-paradise tips its blossom back to swallow the fish whole. Dante thinks this is very rude, but decides not to say anything about it to God. Dante is trying to think. Dante is thinking: God. God. He is trying to say: If you showed me—where you keep the invoices. But Dante doesn't say this to God. Instead, he watches God dip His pinky into a tiny cup of poi. Dante blinks. He tries to see how many times he can naturally blink in thirty seconds. Then fifteen seconds. Each time Dante blinks, he sees God dipping His pinky into the poi. Once, when Dante's family's house was robbed, his mother took him to court and told him to be good. Dante had a coloringbook that he was coloring. The picture that Dante was coloring had a zebra sitting in an armchair. Next to the armchair was a lamp with a striped shade, & an endtable with a telephone on it. Dante decided that he would color the entire picture black-&-white-striped. It took a long time. The places where Dante colored were sometimes black, but not white. In fact, the white places in his picture were the same color as the poi that God is dipping His pinky into. Dante blinks again. God dips His pinky into the poi. Dante blinks. God dips His pinky into the poi. God dips His pinky into the poi. God dips His pinky into the — God? Dante leans over the table. Dante leans over the table, nearly toppling God's water goblet. The water goblet nearly topples. God dips His pinky into the poi. Dante leans over the table, nearly toppling God — am I colorsafe?

              What safe God says.

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