“Why do you blame me?” This night,
she held back no longer her need to assuage.
“You were with me
when I ate!
You heard that wicked creature’s enticements!
Why did you not protect me? Why were you silent?”
Bitterness ricochets off the cavern’s walls; even
punishing did not satisfy, nothing did.
The accusation echoes — then she is wrenched
with guilt at the muffled sobs of the man. He never
wept. Always that flinty gaze, even when
exiting the garden.
Then Cain wakes. She turns from the man’s side
to the child; he nestles at her comforting breast,
and slumbers again. Adam murmurs, finally, “Woman,
I forgave you, as I named you. You are ‘Giver
of Life’! Eve, forgive me — or the promises
will wither, as all our crops have done.” She hears his plea,
she ransoms fear, her fingers drip with liquid myrrh,
to open the handles of the bolt, yet he has risen from their bed.
And another day she must endure of
her soul failing when he spoke.
He groans, feeling his body’s bane, the chill of Fall,
and an ebbing fire. He sees an ebony mamba,
a sneering glint, slithering away
towards the field’s briers, and though he knows
her seed would smash its head, he will taunt a snake.
“You are finished!” His voice sounds ridiculous in
the empty silence. So Adam wearily waits for
more light, yearning for that dawn
when the sting of thorns will be ended, and
his children will not return to dust — only be made new.