Eve’s Version

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

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