Genesis Undone Judith Steele

Judith Steele

The apple drops, unbitten, hisses in blameless grass. He snakes one limb over, pins her to a fresh pressed bed. She writhes, palms flat against his heated chest, twists from his grasp. Feels lines dissolve on her left hand.

The artist in her smoky cave feels lines dissolve on her right hand. Drops her flaming brush as horses born of paint fade to common stone. Spring does not come. She feeds on brittle nettles, sickens in the wind.

Sickening in the wind, the cartographer lays down his pen. Land shifts beneath his feet. Dragons drown in unnamed seas. Ships founder on hidden shoals, fires lick pages of unwritten books.

Licking pages of unwritten books, the yogi hungers for lost holy vows. Bereft before his wordless prayers, he wanders through desert rain compass points unmoored.

Compass points unmoored, turtles leave their golden, yolkless children

on the outer rim. Radar bending in their earholes, they swim through humming air under unattended sun.

Under unattended sun, waters rise shores unhinge. Birds fly north to die. Somewhere far from home, air chokes the final salmon sliding from the fisher’s net.

And Adam slides from Eve’s dark bed before they ever meet.