it dawned
     from the half-bitten fruit,
    this boorish serpent,
      this inner foreboding
          of flesh tingling tempted
    out of frame.

     sin takes to blood, the nail
    sifting the flesh, birthing
         the bells of the word

      fracturing our silences
     displacing the void into radiant senselessness -

       this heart of Pilate
     where once in front of
    this purloined innocence
   the temples crumbled to ash
     of all beginnings

    telling us all of our
     preordained peccadillo,

   unannounced wraith pouncing
   on each to lurid each,
       biting more from the world
    and its land that remembers
     the till of feet welcomed
      by diadems of flagella,

    love have we not, eternally?
      no singing seraphs wept
        as the afternoon erupts,
      a fragmented word: love.