Eve

by Aaron Crippen

A long time passed before she pulled him down
on top of her, when she was in our world with us
looking out at him.
Oh to blush and not know it, she thought to herself.
In a spasm, to forget—
What does one do with a simple soul?
The dark side of devotion
is a hollow heart.
So she lay his hands
on her suntanned hips
and pushed that ruddy fruit,
parting his lips, into his mouth.
She had felt, beside his, so many pulses.
Each was different. Each shone.
Like a bowlful of jewels. Sink your fingers in.
The facets of cheekbones under skin
as they grimace oh Baby, never change.
Yes I love you. You remember now, don’t you,
all we lost. I riding your saddle
down an emerald road. Crisp November.
Flecks of gold filtering through frosty trees,
catching candlelight outside a hut at the fork of a streams.
You groaned, we laughed, south of Galveston,
crouching to our chests in the silty waves.
That was you in every face,
she didn’t say. She was seeing,
in his scalproots, generations of trees;
black splotches, on cobbles, of starting rain.