Napo 29

Eve During Quarantine

Is this how she felt millennia

Ago, sheltered in Eden’s refuge?

A cupboard always full

Of everything she needed—

Garbanzo beans and quinoa,

Organic mac and cheese,

Jars and jars of marinara sauce

So red and blushing.

A freezer full of chicken,

Ground beef, loins of pork.

A bed, rendering pleasure.

A home, a foundry of succor.

Here, I want for nothing

Save the sunset, red like an apple

Or a pomegranate or a cherry,

Setting on a backdrop of a dead city.

Standing in her garden,

Naked, did Eve gaze beyond

The walls of her garden

Like me, standing at my window,

Smudging it with her palms,

And weep? This fragile body

Be damned. Mortality

Be damned. Life be damned.

Did she ache to return

to the work of the living?