Strong white teeth in Eden break the skin of taboo fruit,
and Adam’s clock begins to count down slowly.
Transience is a root-canal realization: breathtaking and terrible.
Tight skin releasing, the rip of heated shame, the
strange new spray on the brow, all following
the tiny click of begun mortality.
Foggy nightmares of a snake and sweet ugly fruit and
a garden gone to hell are too much, and Eve is haunted
by the sound of a flaming sword at the garden’s east,
her stomach mottled with odd disappointment
when death is delayed.
© 2007 jackie lea sommers
1 comment:
Sorry for the delay. I have been busy lately.
Honestly, I think the first version was better; it seemed to have tighter meter and structure. Although, you have created two powerful phrases: "the rip of heated shame" and "her stomach mottled with odd disappointment." Is the later phrase a reference to Eve's menstural cycle, which until the curse would presumably not have been unpleasant, or labor pains?
As to your question about how to present your speculations without presenting them as truth, I think signing your name, as you do, instead of "Genesis 3" is enough to distinguish your thoughts from inspired scripture.
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