Eve

Everyone assumes

she’d never eaten the fruit

before she made the mistake

of sharing some with that dimwit

Adam, who of course confessed, babbled

like a frightened child

the first time God looked crosswise

at him. Actually, she’d been snatching

bites here and there for years.

Neither God nor Adam had been observant

enough to notice the extra lightness

in her step, the little smiles for no

particular reason, the way she laughed

as if their dry jokes were funny

or how she sat entranced by the wings

of the dragonfly, as if each beat were a reprise

of her heart, a count of the minutes, hours, days

until the making of a cocoon

or perhaps the breaking of one.

This poem was published by The Pinch at the University of Memphis