The Garden

by Eva Wiener

it is bone white at the

beginning

and I the marrow and I was

dead cold in the center

of a blue nucleus, I was

waiting for you, and now I am

your loss when before I was

lonely cradled in mine,

and you are giving your rib and

if I am made of man then

perhaps I am man, and

I will eat and I will laugh and

You are not man, young one,

you are man’s.

You bloomed like jasmine

from my pure white bone and

I tended to you, pretty thing,

taught you to make song from

your lips so that when I speak

you can speak back.

oh love, might my mouth

not be an echo but a

galaxy, spilling over with

sweet stars and forked

snake-tongues and

your glory, always your glory, and

If you are the galaxy then

I am God, and I have made creatures

that want to swallow your pomegranate

blood; you are nothing without me,

you who lies in the dew, who picks fruit

from the lowest branch, you, my rib.

if I am your rib then

part of you was small

and could not reach,

but I feel a thing

growing inside of me;

its scales scratch my lungs

and soon I will part

my lips and it will

speak, and it will

reach the highest branch

and it will eat the fruit

and the world and

But you cannot leave the earth,

your feet were meant to cling to moss

and your hands to my face.

Even paradise is a small place alone;

my teeth chattered like tree branches

before I had your creature-warmth.

A rib was not much to give to

rid me of my silence.

it is not silent;

it calls to me now,

a red heart on the

highest branch, it is

singing to the thing

inside, and this song

is different than the

one you taught me,

it beats bloody and screams

and the thing inside

is telling me to climb,

and the bark is ridged

like the canyons on

your palms, why is

there so much of you

in the world and

the branch is close

and the heart is shivering

and my lips are parting,

the serpent’s head is fat

and lovely and

The sky is not for you, this place

was made for me and you were

made for me, from me, and

do you not remember the bone white,

the beginning when I taught you to speak

under the merciful moon, and I gave you

your mouth, you would not have a mouth,

you do not have a mouth and

I have a mouth

The mouth is an echo, it

so I may eat

God help me, save me save me

apples and bark and the sea and stars like deer-freckles and the gaping moon and husks of snakes and the skin around my fingers and every man after you I will eat every one and I will eat and eat and

I will take your

dirty rib from my

soul and shove it

down your throat

so that you may

echo with bone.

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