Eve Wakes in the Garden

On the first day she wakes under a shade 
of flowers, wondering who she is, and where?  
The air is a warm breath.

She follows the sound of trickling, lies down 
on the mossy bank of a brook 
and looks into the clear blue mirror.  

A face stares back at her: eyes drawn 
like almonds, lips full as leaves.  A voice says 
she is looking at her own reflection

and there is someone like her, waiting, impatient.  
She is led along a leaf strewn path to Adam.  
O, she thinks when she sees him-  

he is not nearly as soft or pleasing as my image.  
She turns back, but Adam pleads 
for her to stay.  He calls her: his flesh, 

the very bone, she who was brought into being 
from his side, nearest his heart.  
She feels giddy, a sensation like whirling.

She has not yet plucked that red fruit 
ripe as her own breast, or bit into soft flesh.
He kneels down to name the hunger in his thighs

and soon they are tumbling in the bower 
on a bed of pink lobelia.  Where is that snake 
slung from the tree of knowing, slack body 

ready to stiffen, its muscled length dangling
as though created for her pleasure?  The day 
is hot, the smell of blossoms thick about her.  


 

© Jan Lee Ande