It's not that anything is changed
between this moment and the next,
but everything is rearranged—
and with new eyes you read the text.
The overpass beneath my wheels
I dread, but dare not close my eyes.
I drive as if no image fills
my mind, of plunging from its side.
If I don't watch the needle pierce
the fragile stronghold of my skin,
I am still whole—until that glimpse.
Before I knew, there was no sin.
You'd looked on Eve a thousand times.
Day after blessèd day you'd seen
the way her hips and shoulders rhymed,
then all at once it was obscene.
Don't think about it. Just don't look.
The words are there, but I can't read—
until I can. The world's a book
and in its pages something bleeds.
Yet Eden, as it ever was,
lies all around us, full of snakes,
and all that blessed us then still does,
reaching out through paragraph breaks.
“Eve and the Serpent.” Plate from Penholm by G. Howell-Baker.- https://digital.cincinnatilibrary.org/digital/collection/p16998coll21/id/38116/rec/1, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=104281987
Kate Bluett 