I wasn't thrown out of Eden,
evicted like some lowly transient
unworthy of Adam's precious paradise.
You see,
It started one day
as I lay beneath the branches
of that flawless forest
and whispered my sorrowful tale
to the sympathetic serpent
as he crawled over my sumptuous belly
over filled with too-sweet plums,
slithered over and between my thighs
thicker than Adams,
and more inviting in their fleshy openness.
As we conferred, I touched
his ever quivering tongue
with a finger also experiencing
tremors of curiosity
and smiled, though my voice trembled with sorrow
at being a creature made, not even of warm clay,
but of a solitary bone
from a dust-born mans breast,
having not even dirt for a mother
to save me from these two fathers,
stern and unyielding in their respective
perfection
and love thereof.
I hate what is perfect
without scar or fissure.
And, I hated that garden
with its endless primordial luxury
and unnaturally deathless splendor
which the witless Adam
strutted through so proudly,
begging to be robbed.
Rob him I did, plotting with the serpent,
and soon suckling the apple with a lewdness
I was only beginning to discover.
that fruit was precious in its slightly unripe tartness.
An apple...apple...
I named it such because the name is not pretty.
It sticks on the tongue,
unlike apricot which rolls, or plum
which just pops out.
The trick
was convincing Adam to taste,
so that day I strutted slightly,
hips swaying,
back arched and breasts pushed forward
from the force of my arms
pulling the apple behind my back humming softly.
I knelt before Adam,
all uplifted eyes,
fruit carefully juxtaposed with my sex
to make both seem more tempting.
I became the temptress,
yet stayed the supplicant child
chattering of a new sensation discovered.
His smooth brow furrowed slightly,
lines quickly wiped away by spongy false bravado.
"Yes, a lovely fruit. Surprised you hadn't found it sooner,
you wander so often. I believe I named it Citrus aurantium.
But I forget, I name so many things. A little taste to remind me."
And then he bit,
brutally, careless,
wasted juice dribbling unchecked down his chin.
I hid my glee at the sudden horror replacing pleasure
that came with the awareness of his fathers disapproval.
I kept my toes from dancing towards our exile
to a world as flawed as myself
where I might finally make studies of decay
the cracks in thirsty soil,
the wonders of a creatures final gasp to add poignancy
to its life.
I walked cringing and stooped,
covering the glories of my womb,
an actress of the purest type, I simpered,
played the poor tricked woman.
Though he still hates me for my weakness
and his inability to prove that our exile was caused by something more
than that.
Yes, that man CAN hold a grudge.
How could I I know that Adam would only be partially fooled.
that my punishment would be centuries of subjugation
for myself and my daughters.
But even precognizant knowledge of this
would have changed nothing.
I change as easily as the fruit from green unripened glory,
to a bursting red...
to a rainbow of withering.
and so I evolved with Adam's anger
and taught my daughters
my arts of weaving, gathering and trickery
the ability to play the willing servant,
all the while waiting for the grating snores
that signal it is safe
to sneak off to Lilith's sanctuary where
a brew of bitter roots accompanies imperfect revelry
and the planning of bolder rebellion.
