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The Fugitive Eve
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In the first moments of knowing,
juice drips down her chin onto
her breasts. Lips and tongue learn
in this oldest, truest way.
The fruit is round and radiant.
The firm weight of it feels
like power. Shreds of flesh catch
in her teeth, and as she eats
she knows it is good.
He needs no serpent to tempt him.
He just wants what she has, just as she wants him
to want what she holds in her hands.
They share it, then toss the core into a bush,
knowing that this is the beginning of death,
the first and best blessing.
And with the original chill of delight
and shame, she is on the lam,
running through brambles, plum boughs,
and luminous webs, past low-slung branches,
past the birds of the air and beasts of the field,
over the rocky soil, stumbling out
of the garden, out of the numb perfection
of before into the brilliant and difficult ever-after.
She is running and running, she feels
the warm rub of her blood-slicked thighs
and a thudding, which is her heart. He is close
behind her, clutching the pain in his side.
They take hold of one another
in their wonder and woe,
and we call out to them
from our place in the future,
this moment, now. We beg them
with our fragile voices,
Mother, Father, bear us
into the beautiful trouble
of this world.”
- ·:· poem – Amy Fleury ·:·