a poem for my sons when they yell at God

Jonah Leaving the Whale, by Jan Brueghel the Elder,
oil on panel (38 x 56 cm), ca. 1600

“It is a childish work—the whale has the head of a dog
and Jonah looks suspiciously fresh.”
                                                       —www.artbible.info

In candied red, the white-bearded
prophet emerges hands still clasped in prayer,
clean, really clean, maybe too clean, first-day-
of-school clean, baptism clean.  It is a childish
painting, perhaps, the punished coming up
for air after a three-day, divine timeout,
his begging and pleading inside this flesh
box, sincere or not, but he’s out, old and fresh
in a world around him, Brueghel is sure
to make clear, swirling blue-black and solid
brown, the earth’s bruising, perhaps a wish
of healing yellow in the distance, a light
faded behind the eye’s focus. The dogfish
eyes big and rolling back mouth open