EDEN

Adrian Korpel 

Artwork: Adam and Eve by Botero

Courtesy www.1st-art-gallery.com

Waking up, my side hurting, I found her lying next to me, 

a being like me yet not like me, 

a curved softness, wet ebony gleaming in the dawn, a smell of coconuts, 

she confused me, stirred me. 

I touched her hair, stroked her breasts, brushed her lips, 

I bent down to her nakedness. 

Much later G. told us our work schedule. 

What fun we had giving the animals names! 

Hirla, the striped hors, 

Mabu of the great mane, 

Tuwulo, the long-necked.

In the end we got silly about the naming, 

called the little hairy one with the eight legs Yucka, 

the fat, warty one Mr Gross. 

(That was Eve’s idea, but G. scolded her for being childish,

and called her Woman.) 

The reptile didn’t want to be named, and gave us a lot of trouble. 

I thought Dimon for the diamond pattern, 

but Eve called him Snake for sneak, 

for his sliding and slithering and hissing, 

for his forked tongue, for his belly crawl, 

for being a bad kind of animal. 

One morning he hid in the apple tree that G. had made, 

and when Eve picked an apple for breakfast, 

he bit her. 

When she died, I lost interest in G. and his garden. 

I buried her near the rock where we woke up that first morning. 

Then I collected the animals, 

opened the gate, 

and left.