He couldn’t help himself;
there was too much laughter in the garden,
too much lightness. And didn’t everything
need a contrary, a counterweight?
He’d come up with gravity so the birds
couldn’t return to heaven, created
hairless skin so the feathered and soft-furred
wouldn’t feel envy for the man he made.
Sorrow, God said, sorrow.
He started small, a sparrow with a broken beak,
flapping at the woman’s feet. Not knowing
this was something new,
she sat beside it, waited for it to rise and sing.
A mole came next. Then from the lion
a coughing that wouldn’t stop. He thought
he’d gone too far with the dog and pulled back
a little, concentrated on one more way to make a beetle.
Finally Adam blamed her for all that happened next
and turned from her touch in their nest of yellow grasses.
God knew if he weighed their hearts at rest, they’d be
heavier than before. Sorrow, he said, thinking.
The lily pond grew fetid, the air smelled of rotting fur.
For a year Adam wouldn’t say her name.
(via babybirch)
The snake can separate itself
from its shadow, move on ribbons of light,
taste the air, the morning and the evening,
the darkness at the heart of things. I remember
when my fear of snakes left for good,
it fell behind me like an old skin. In Swift Current
the boys found a huge snake and chased me
down the alleys, Larry Moen carrying it like a green torch,
the others yelling, Drop it down her back, my terror
of it sliding in the runnell of my spine (Larry,
the one who touched the inside of my legs on the swing,
an older boy we knew we shouldn’t get close to
with our little dresses, our soft skin), my brother
saying Let her go, and I crouched behind the caraganas,
watched Larry nail the snake to a telephone pole.
It twisted on twin points of light, unable to crawl
out of its pain, its mouth opening, the red
tongue tasting its own terror, I loved it then,
that snake. The boys standing there with their stupid hands
dangling from their wrists, the beautiful green
mouth opening, a terrible dark O
no one could hear.
He couldn’t help himself;
there was too much laughter in the garden,
too much lightness. And didn’t everything
need a contrary, a counterweight?
He’d come up with gravity so the birds
couldn’t return to heaven, created
hairless skin so the feathered and soft-furred
wouldn’t feel envy for the man he made.
Sorrow, God said, sorrow.
He started small, a sparrow with a broken beak,
flapping at the woman’s feet. Not knowing
this was something new,
she sat beside it, waited for it to rise and sing.
A mole came next. Then from the lion
a coughing that wouldn’t stop. He thought
he’d gone too far with the dog and pulled back
a little, concentrated on one more way to make a beetle.
Finally Adam blamed her for all that happened next
and turned from her touch in their nest of yellow grasses.
God knew if he weighed their hearts at rest, they’d be
heavier than before. Sorrow, he said, thinking.
The lily pond grew fetid, the air smelled of rotting fur.
For a year Adam wouldn’t say her name.
(via babybirch)
