in the first days of adam I. He is a genius like no other before him. but none of this matters as he boils water for tea, reaches for the honey, a spoon, allowing his thoughts to idle through each empty room, lamenting the stillness of every mirror. II. He rubs his hands together before he eats his lunch alone, making the best of silence to stare out the window at silvery interlaced trees; two cardinals opposite each other in a bush, as if it were a scale finding equality in two flames III. He is startled by his own whisper over the scrape of knife on plate: "Someday i will not be alone. Someday i will not be alone." IV. He creates universes planting carrots. He destroys universes pulling carrots. He stares at his hands, awed by a foreign power; in each crease and line he sees the furrows and vines of a great garden. V. Every thought is a prayer. Where else would they go? Before bed he kneels and curses the wind that makes only his hairless skin shiver. This is the only time he does not pray. VI. Early morning: A knock on the door His heart is a fruit swollen with ripeness
eve My existence hinges on the fact that somewhere cold there is a man liviong alone in a small clapboard house set far back from a straight, shallow road. He is wiping down dishes with a thin steaming rag, staring out the window past the trees to the slight gray rise of the road. He is content, yet... His dog turns to him, tensing its lax black lips in a smile. "Where is she?" the man asked the dishes, the dog, the small clapboard house set far back from the road. "Where is she? Where is she?" He dreams that i visit: I walk from the road, stepping over deadfall, clumps of grass. I tap at the window. A brief hello then he shows me his pipe. It has a carving of a rosebush. We tear greens for salad and his beard, yellowed from smoke, works up and down on half of a cored apple. Nighttime and we curl and cup in sleep like two fallen leaves in the clapboard house set far back from the road. In the wry smile of a dog; this is where i have my beginnings.
