A regular story

Rubens wonders

how to put that ripple of unrest

in Paradise where it doesn’t belong.

It can’t be there — or how then,

for won’t then

Heaven, too, be spoiled?

He sleeps and dreams Eve,

who comes wanting not knowing —

and in an arc the dream falls

from the snake to the woman to the man.

 

For Jim and Nancy Forest

Because of the junk

When my grandma put up her fence

it wasn’t because of the neighbors.

It was because of the junk.

They’d never done anything and

she’d never done anything.

But she didn’t have to look at it.

They’d all have to look at the fence, though.

And at, behind it, the open heart of man —

at Adam atop his heart cleaving.