Читать книгу The Anti-Grief - Marianne Boruch - Страница 15

In Dürer’s Engraving

Adam gets three for his privates—a triplet affair

as in poison ivy, as in the venerable

box elder. Eve, one wide leaf,

or it could be a smashed, very sorry rose. I need

better glasses. Engravings

take time. Still Adam looks at her—

curious or just wary, was love

invented yet?—and she, only at the snake wrapped

sensibly for balance around a young tree.

An apple. Sure, the apple:

okay tempting enough, even as E and A stand there

fully bodied and souled, not terribly young, years

to build up such muscle (Adam), such flesh (Eve) though

I can’t say they’re long in the tooth. Nary a tooth

to scare that garden. The rumor: no weapons, no way.

Those creatures in the foreground or behind

oblivious, or bored with the notion prey in whatever

shaft of light for naps: a mouse, a cat,

an ox, etcetera, each different-dreaming day or night if any

beyond the likes of us really do dream. Curly hair (Eve

with her lots more), side by side, roughly same

height, breadth, the standard

wedding pose—minus outfits—except

between them the snake so soon to be famous

I almost forget Eve’s set there to

take her bite. Hunger’s urgent echoing no end-to-it,

but whose, and for what…

Because Dürer is a tad ambiguous.

Maybe the snake’s merely

a snake famished at this point, mouth

wide open at, on that apple

right out of Eve’s hand. And she’s not generous,

or just can’t imagine—

and will not not not release. Maybe that’s

the bloody thorn of it.

No sound in the garden. And closer, so much

weirdity to love. Which one, Adam

or Eve smarter, more full of wanting, of bravado,

wonder, all grief finally but first

able to talk those animals into lounging about,

no vengeance, no tricks, assuming

chats with a snake don’t count. I’m not sure what counts.

Or who’s even counting though the parrot

(a parrot? large, strange in that setting, a so-what-if-

history-begins-as-some-mythic-dire-reboot

all over him) looks away, in profile, ready to lament not yet

the again again

calm enough on a branch held high by

the first man. Now just a distance,

an apple to take or to give.

It’s those was-and-will-be stories my whole life

with a fuck-up inside. Starting sweet,

out of place. Pre-unbearable.