It's not like he makes out.

His law was clear enough. A garden full of fruits

And one we weren't to touch but what a garden.

One day in we gorged and slept and fucked. 

He'll tell you about that

But not the flies that buzzed around the trees

And itched into my mind. Not the creeping

Into mould, the rancid dustiness of all the other fruit.

I ate nothing for days

Before I saw that snake. Was he a snake?

I hadn't yet learned snakeness. All I knew

Was empty-bellied pain and something else.

He claimed it for himself,

Of course, that growing right-wrong anger

That ruptured in me when I ate that fruit.

I knew. Before I ate, before we left the garden.