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I.
I tell you temptation was cool
As a string of pearls in my hands.
It wasn’t the fruit,
color of flesh and mouths,
it was the idea of touch
that caused me to reach out.
What did I, fresh
from the realm of mythology,
my feet still half-sunk in clay,
know of desire?
Only that the word “seed”
stemmed from it,
that all of nature
seemed to be ripe with it.
Itīs the skin hunger
Which forces its own vision
I learned that we are half
of something always,
craving the mystery
of that other side.
I learned that one must dance
to its music.
I tell you temptation was tender,
patiently asking for direction
in the Eden wilderness.
With the clear God-pattern
drawn on our palm
like crib notes,
there was no escaping it.
It wasn’t the new world and everything in it,
the winged leaves and pink sky,
the animals in their curious skin,
nor the serpent with its slow groove
of persuasion moving in the branches.
It wasn’t the new world
that called to me—
it was desire,
that young disease
that I answered to.
II.
The first touch was sharp,
disturbing the foreign inside me.
It stained like blood on cotton.
The snowy doves
trying to deliver peace
had warned me of this,
but of the burning they were mute.
And the fire in the belly that came
was no dull surprise.
Remember that I was the one
Pushed to the front
To navigate in the dark.
Initiation was to grasp
something whole and sweet,
to taste but not be filled.
And because of me
these palpitations
were given a name.
III.
Where the curse began,
in the prickly womb-nest,
the uncleanliness pinned
to each daughter,
this was where the myth hatched,
the belief that She
could lead you into
dirty waters
blindfolded,
stain your hands red,
that She was supernaturat
and could turn a man
to seawater with her hands,
let him scatter
if She chose him to.
She could deafen you with silence.
She could devour your whole existence
with temptation.
She could make you go mad
with wanting
to eat out of her hand.
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