Genesis

Eating the apple was
just a choice.
Not a bad choice
not a good choice
just a choice.
If I hadn't, we wouldn't even be
having this conversation.
If I hadn't, we wouldn't have ever
forgotten our animal.
Our first brains
returning home.
But I did
I chose to bite and
there was a crunch of poetry
between the molars.
Its redness became like love
affairs in cities not ours
because neither of us want something
that feels like something
we know.
Its sweetness became like after-
midnight soliloquies spoken
out loud so the gods can have
on record that you tried.
Scratch that.
Its sweetness became
the effort itself.
Wanting to know love so badly
we'd take it
in any brew we could get it.
We'd take it as a shot of espresso
or as the conversation tipping over it.
We'd even take the emptiness
as proof that cups have the
capacity to be filled.
We'd tilt our heads back
open our jaws wide
and let it
drip
down
from the cosmos
to the tips of our tongues.
We'd lick the dew
straight off a celestial finger
if it would just tell us
what came first,
chicken or egg.
What we are really asking is
the anatomy of our knowing
and the womb that
birthed it.
Of course I bit the apple.
Somebody had to do it.
Yes,
the juice
slid down my wrist
slowly
like letting rage
slither to the end of its
beak
and, yes,
it was good.
Don't be mad cuz I got there first.
You cursed your own damn self
by naming the regret in your
throat after it.
So please,
stop wasting your time
tainting my glory and I'll stop
wasting my breath
trying to prove that it is my
desire
that makes the mountains you run
to when you need a moment alone
to contemplate the heavens
that would not exist to you
if I hadn't made the
choice
to pluck
red
round
existence
from its dangled stem
and bite
straight
down.