Poem Therapy at 1:07 P.M. - Jeanne Wagner

Jeanne Wagner

Eve’s Version
Jeanne Wagner

It was when he told me I was made from Adam’s
rib, not his heart or his gut or his brain,

or that special appurtenance between his legs,
but a single rib from the thicket of bone

where animals dive their heads down after dark
to gorge on the flesh of their prey.

Because I found out I was not the first one born,
or even the second, but made from a bare bone,

a dog’s idea of generation, I took the fruit and
ate it, not as some have said,

with small salacious bites, the sweet juice trickling
down my chin, but

sitting cross-legged under that very tree, my
favorite when in flower,

its limbs all covered in a pale froth of blossom.
With new exactness, I picked the fruit,

cut it in half, pulled the pit from its center and
placed it on the ground.

Then I halved those halves, again and again,
arranging each small curved slice

in a tangent around the stone, like the rays of
the sun, the petals of a simple flower.

Only when I had done all this, did I pick up
each piece and force myself to eat,

bite by bitter bite.

March is Women's History month, so I thought I'd start things out with a poem about the first woman of the Bible, (actually, Lilith was there first, but I'll get to her).

WHMP 2010's them is Writing Women Back Into History, so my focus will be just that.