this appeared in Staple
It isn't that the oranges tasted better
or that the dust that fell across the shafts
of morning sun were something more than dirt.
We're made of motes here too, and here the sky
changes for eve, changes for morning. Though
the grass was growing when the sword was sheathed,
we are not missing all of Paradise.
I've told the story now so many times
I don't think I remember how it happened,
when I woke up with that stitch in my side
and she alongside. It still makes a good story.
What I do remember is how we made
the lamb eat avocados. Who would think
a sheep could pull a face? So here I am,
Father of Man, and dignified by years,
a tale in my possession no one else
could match but she, who is herself the tale,
and all I have to tell are anecdotes.
What stays when the emotion drains away
is this moment and that, the lamb, a bath,
Abel's first laugh, when he saw his first chicken.
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