Birches

Originally published in Dappled Things Summer 2019.

He made the woods and birches lithe and white
amid the green.  When Adam saw them, then
he knew his maker would make him Eve.  And, she,
a speaking rib, a torn side lanced, a flood
was born from him as water and the blood.

That the creator would attend to things
so small and presage there a world renewed,
that he would build a bride again in blood
and water flowing form the side of God,
is scarcely comprehensible at all
to me, a rib broken by man’s fall.