TREE WITH FRUIT

What knowledge was it?

What seed, what juice

of pomegranate

that split adamandeve

and gave each new each

fear and shame

at the sight

of the other’s

skin?

It is unlikely to have been

about sex – commonplace

among animals. In fact

cloning one

from the other’s rib –

judged poor form by an ethics committee –

No, if guilt was to be assigned

Yahweh would have faced the dock –

an assault, an intervention performed

during sleep without informed consent.

More likely it was awareness of death,

learning that we only visit the garden;

wrinkles form, joints twist and creak,

years turn skin from smooth to sag;

we lose the knack

we lose track.

Knowing this drives us to flee

to dress in fine clothes for the concert

or the play, to hide the surgical scar,

black tie to obscure the strangling cosmic hand

as close and tight as a skin graft

on our throat.