By Alison Hawthorne Deming
Pomegranates fell from the trees
in our sleep. If we stayed
in the sun too long
there were aloes
to cool the burn.
Henbane for predators
and succulents when the rain was scarce.
There was no glorified past
to point the way
true and natural
for the sexes to meet.
He kept looking to the heavens
as if the answer were anywhere
but here. I was so bored
with our goodness
I couldn’t suck the juice
from one more pear.
It’s here, I kept telling him,
here, rooted in the soil
like every other tree
you know. And I wove us
a bed of its uppermost branches.
Alison Deming, “Eve Revisited” from Science and Other Poems. Copyright © 1994 by Alison Deming. Reprinted by permission of Louisiana State University Press.
Source: Science and Other Poems (Louisiana State University Press, 1994)
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