When he’d resisted
he thought he’d laid his claim upon it
forever and secure.

Not this alone
but also that he’d made a judgement for them both.

Imagine then his horror
when she ate the fruit he had refused, chewed up that flesh,
drank of that dripping juice, devoured the skin
and swallowed all the seed within.

Yet worse was to come!
for some time around dusk, when the light was unsure
and he waited for lightning to strike her,
he saw she’d become a tree too,
many branched, complexed with blossom,
growing tall and bearing rich fruit of her own.