Shame: In the Voice of Eve

Shame: In the Voice of Eve

In that my flesh is counterfeit-

not made of earth or out of the dust,

but of a distillation from the body of a man-

I have no shame in how I live,

but that I thrive

despite the stasis of my cells

and feel despite

the plastic of my shape,

worries me.  

My soul is liquid,

pouring through my lips, through my breasts,

through fingertips pressed against my lover’s chest,

through yearning in my blood,

leisure under the boughs of an all-knowing tree,

or in my eyes drifting from his face

into the sky,

into the mysteries of why, of how:

of how can I yearn for the sun

when I’m not even made of earth

and bound with fluid breath.

I look to the sky

and feel it in my spine, in the movement of my neck

that I am upright, my origin is there,

but I look towards Kadmoni, to Adam,

and see the red clay of his sinewed limbs

of my extremities,

and when my soul steams through my lips

into his ear,

I feel that I betray my birth from the sun,

and yet when I yearn for the stars,

and drift beside the clouds,

I cannot help but feel the weight of Man upon my lap,

and that my face burns red:

I swear I would be shameless

if I was only one.