Sin

The Garden of Eden, by Carol L. Douglas (2001)

The child wanders the garden path
heart wide open she follows the path
Attracted by the pretty colors
drawn towards the seductive scents
Off the path a little ways
Meander just a little way
there has never before now
been such a fiery orange-purple seen
chase the butterfly
then follow the song
of the trickling stream
trip across mossy stones
slippery trickery
foot falls in
she splashes about
forgetting herself
Deep in the garden
The garden of delight
she takes her fill
and is consumed
Forgetting not only
That there was a path
but that she has hopelessly strayed.



Eve hangs photographs of her bastard children
See my pretty little darlings
See what comes from my body my body
It echoes in mirrors reflecting back
Upon themselves herself infinity
She colors her hair to match the sun
She paints her lips to match her cunt
She is hard and vulgar to hide the pain
Man always blames the woman
Even the small woman child
She’s given up the fruits of sex
Adam was never much good at it anyway
Eve putters about her garden wondering
why she can’t hold onto a man
Except for this one God bound her to
Bride in white bleed in color
Watch it on the ten o clock news
The sheer white curtains of another woman’s dreams
The antithesis of an incomplete thesis
Everything before her shrouded in darkness
As her summer passes uneventfully
Even her ability to forgive is a lie
She wants what she wants but can’t speak it aloud
Except in coded messages that are not received
She judges and despises what she envies most
While feeding what’s left she snaps at strangers
Insults poor simpletons and notches her belt
Gaze in the glass for the hundredth time
Eve knows she is a goddess and not a woman
Even as she spills the last droplets
of compassion that she once possessed
Eve likes the bottle it makes her brave
And drowns the pain she is invincible
until tomorrow when she discovers
she went to far and has to make
another false apology the pain still hurts
Eve waits by the box for her future to come
Not knowing it has already past.


A prescription for poison
Death in a bottle
Serve it up cold
with the pita and hummus
What is the point of killing oneself,
What is wrong with women, she thinks.
He is so much more worthy
Of this cold moment of certain
condemnation in an appetizer.
She always was the perfect hostess
Everybody said so serve it up
on the old silver tray
No you just sit there
I’ll pour you a drink
Let’s have a pleasant evening
for once.