Two white hands with timid fingers
Part the foliage
Two black eyes with trembling lashes
Pull the bushes aside

The woman with the garland of bruises
Mottling pale back and leg and breast
Turns to face
The forbidden tree
Alone
For the blessed cursed moment

The branches laden with fruit
Forbidden by Creator
Yet proclaiming hope
An end
To the nights
When her cries echo
Over the holy garden
That is deaf to her pain

God threatened she remembers
His eyes were clouded
Like those of Adam
Before the storm

But she cannot obey
One more time
She cannot
Succumb to the flesh of her flesh
One more time
The serpent has the right of it

The fruit
Beckons
Promises to erase her past
She who is dust and bone and
Nothing else

So in the garden
The garden of Heaven
That is Hell
One small hand closes on hope
Brings it to her mouth
And
Takes
A
Bite