After
Adam
You’ve heard the story too, I guess, about the serpent
and the kiwi—or maybe they told you it was an apple, a Granny Smith,
a Red Delicious. Well, no matter, they’re wrong. No Python. No Pippin.
There was a garden, of sorts, a path through the lush vegetation,
the pools and runnels, but none of it had the discipline of a garden.
And in case you think I was just sitting there adoring Him, I had
my little job to do—to make a name for everything—Maximum
Taxonomy, that’s what it was. So when I woke after one of my all
too infrequent naps to find one more thing to name, her is
what I thought. But she was so interested, so hang-on-a-guy’s-every-word,
I have to admit I found her adorable. Who doesn’t love being worshipped?
Then I touched her just to see what she was like—I
have to know the feel of skin, the temperature to name them right—and
for the heft of her, I took her in my arms. Right there she twisted
into snake! I didn’t mean for it to end the way it did, but only
just to certify her, don’t you see, as woman—never as man’s
woe—only a simple, backboned thing.
And then she said my name.
Eve
From the beginning, I was his extra bone—
before the red tent, the named virgin, the whore,
and babies brought forth in anguish, before
accusation, litigation, I was designed for devotion.
After that, all they could say was: seductress,
responsible party, lure and terror. Those clergy,
Paul, Aquinas, none of them realized how ordinary
the moment was. No trickery, no double cross,
just my palm held out to the prototype farmer, already
in a rut, mad for my particular crop. Imagine
orchard evenings, breezes, fruit—
how they annoyed him, how boredom drove his curiosity,
how, not to eat became impossible for him
and how soon after that first bite he named his new joy guilt.
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