if only i had shown more love,
eve thinks, calloused hands brushing
dirt upon her baby boy.

adam sits tired in the field,
sweat dripping like blood down
his brow as he thinks O' this
sorrow must be what death
feels like.

cain collapses somewhere between
eden and nowhere, the taste of
copper haunting the back of his
throat.

abel, clothed in light, lets out a laugh.
it echoes to earth like the thud of a
sacrifice He did not ask for.

- the first family