The Death of Eve

On the first day God began splitting

things, and time began.

The angels gathered in little groups

—even though it was forbidden—

and said things like: remember when death

and life were the same?

Remember the language of trees?

Remember love before hate became its own thing?

God said remembering was just for Sundays

but people were already beginning to ignore him.

Remember God? they said.

This was before clocks or maps or

dictionaries of etymology. But it was after

the first prayer. The day Eve died

the sun stayed low in the sky.

Adam stared out the window

at the long shadows, then

started making calendars.

The first time that it got dark in winter,

Eve thought time was going

backwards. She’d wake up early

to check if the stars had disappeared

or if gills had reappeared on the necks of horses.

She watched for returning chaos and shooed every

bird away to safety. What if all this ends? she said

looking back and looking forward, looking round.

In the end her worry didn’t matter. Days arrived where nights

had seemed to stay. The next time it happened

she mapped out a pattern. The third time

she understood. Then she saw the circles everywhere:

in seasons; in the passage of the skies; in Adam’s eye.

Remember when we were younger?

she said, walking among the trees.

Evening came, then morning, and everyone was

talking about time. Remember

when I was young? the child said,

and people smiled. Remember the

garden? Eve had said and they wished

she’d be quiet. Remember when

the old woman spoke and we thought

she knew nothing, someone said a few years later.

Eve was in the ground by then—

they brought angel feathers to the grave.