BY BROKEN KESTRAL

Before that last breath,

In nine-hundred and thirty years before death

I wonder if Adam and Eve ever stopped thinking about the Forbidden Fruit.

Were it not for angels guarding Eden with their flaming swords,

Were it not for the scorching fear of Yahweh’s terrible words,

Would they have returned for another bite?

Splendor among splendors—all things good,

Creation of the Father’s loving heart, crowning wood

There it hung, glowing in the daylight.

Tempted by the weight of a glory too heavy for them to bear

They bit into a future too terrible to swallow—

And it was too late to spit it out.

Did they long to taste it again in the days that followed?

Did they yearn for the good and the evil they had swallowed?

To hold their future in their hands?

Or was the consequence too bitter?

Eyes open, blame coating fruit-stained lips, leaves like litter,

Was the memory so repulsive it made them gag? 

Temptation hangs like fruit

With god-like promises I know to be broken, moot,

—still I reach out my hand.

Eden again, the fruit within reach,

I draw back my hand, blood-stained from sin’s breach,

How many times must the rooster crow before the betrayal ends?