Genesis 3:19 "Inthe sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground;for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thoureturn."

I   Adam’s Epiphany

You tooare a waste

amongpilfered things

Pallidflesh crumbled

inwrapping paper of sunset.  Mourning

a gift’sabsence

An abscessof fragments ashing

agrave.  A mound of ants cupping

their deadin curve of mandible. Consider

yourpresence a dynasty of space. Capture

sound,your own echo congealing in soil-

bloodedhands.  You are sand

Flecks ina comet’s wilting ray

Bloodedhands, you are sand,

sound.  Your own echo congealing in soil,

yourpresence a dynasty of space. Capture

the deadin curve of mandible. Consider

a grave: amound of ants cupping

an abscessof fragments, ashing

A gift’sabsence

inwrapping paper of sunset. Mourning

pallidflesh, crumbled

amongpilfered things

You tooare a waste

II    Inquisition of Eve

Imagine the Tree

Brown feminine body

A giant clown in green headdress

Before there was memory.  Leaves loud with fruit

Forbidden as the meeting of our genitals after the firstbite

Nectar drips past your teeth, your mouth a shrine of seeds

I never asked you to marry me. To bind your borrowed rib

With fruit membrane, its pit’s skull labyrinthine as afingerprint 

Never asked you to think for yourself that evening or listento what slithered

In your then useless womb.  A tomb of hastened bone

Remember sibilant voice of scales sighing

Against bark. Remember the color of rattles

Like shells tipping his vertebrae.

Did he promise you timelessness?

Did he promise he would

Bestow a rib

Sternumless, unfixed?

Perhaps he promised

To expand his jaw

Take

A bite

Eat

His fill

Fork

The space

Where even you

Could not hide

Pleasure

Ecstasy

Of knowing, yes

Knowing

Finally

What that unbroken

Circle below

Was for