i.
Eve has hands like a wrecked garden: dirt caked under her fingernails, wild and vicious and thorn-covered; wild and sunstruck and crawling. She presses her palms into the grass underneath the orchards and prays a blasphemy.
ii.
This is how it goes: there is always a boy, or maybe a snake. There is a time before, with the darkness so whole and absolute it chokes, and there is a time after, with burning light and shame so heavy it puts you on your knees.
This is how it goes: your summerborn cheeks flushed but your eyes cold and barren and wintered.
This is how it goes: you are made from bones that never settled into the earth.
iii.
The apples hanging from the trees have gone nearly overripe and heavy, bending from the boughs and flushed red.
Eve has a mouth sticky-sweet and soft, a body like a rosebush in bloom.
Eve has a bird's nest of hair that calls home only vultures.
This is how it goes: there is always a hunger for more.
iv.
Eve presses her palms against the planes of her stomach, against the soft curves the moon has smoothed onto her.
Eve presses her palms into the grass and howls: *"I will not bear you fruit."
me??? write a thinly veiled allegory with religious themes?? never.
