Her story doesn’t say a word
about a serpent or an apple
or an angel with a flaming sword.
Instead she talks about a blouse,
her one-and-only favorite,
and its field of white polka dots
that danced a polka on the dark blue silk.
The blouse was the only thing she wore
after she had taken off her clothes,
and all of his as well.
“The dots were tiny little flecks,
like snow, and the blouse did not fall
‘like petals from a flower,’
as Adam would like you to believe.
I unbuttoned it deliberately and
slipped it from my shoulders.
“In spite of his bewilderment,
I coaxed his arms into the sleeves
and buttoned it up, up, up,
to the apple in his throat and
watched (in utter satisfaction)
as his human form changed and he grew fur
turned into an irredescent mouse
into a soggy butterfly
emerging from the sheath
of its cocoon and then became
an iridescent mouse with fur
the colors of the rainbow.
“I loved his wings and honey- colored
teeth and the goaty, curly horns
that sprouted from his eyebrows
and the third horn, stiff and straight,
and black as the abyss, that stuck out
of his forehead like an icicle.
“But most of all I loved the moment
he turned into a shadow of his shadow
and both the blouse and he dissolved
and the polka dots bloomed
into a swarm of stars.
“This whirlwind of identities
left him shaken and depressed
and he didn’t speak to me for days.
But as far as I was concerned,
they were my own, own Original
Sin, the diamonds of my greatest joy.
“As for him, he would eventually awaken
from the spell and become a responsible adult, but he has never since put on the blouse that once led him from the temples,
the priests and the punishments into
a life of our Imagination.”
© 2014 J.M. Keating
Wings emerged from his spine and I loved his honey-colored teeth