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Read Genesis 3

I can almost not remember it anymore,

but there is something about the way

the light plays through the leaves of the trees

in that grove off to the west that looks like

a sword flashing back and forth, and I feel

a dull ache in my back teeth,

a tingling at the base of my spine,

and a memory deep in my gut

where memories live. The woman

always laughs her raucous laugh at me

when she catches me crying,

but how can I help but weep when I remember

all that we have lost? I wonder at her

paucity of compassion

and the absence of remorse

she demonstrates, as though the loss

means nothing to her. “It means nothing to me,”

she says with that wounding sneer

smeared across her lips. “It’s a story you made up

to satisfy your maudlin need for self-reproach,

as if there is some virtue in atoning for

your invented guilt.

This is the life we are given,

if ‘given’ is even the word for it,

and why you can’t just live this life with me,

with your children,

with your work

and be happy

I’ll never understand.” She thinks

it’s all made up; it’s my imagination

that once we had more, that once

we walked with our maker in the cool of the evening,

that once we lay beside each other naked,

without reserve or apology or shame,

that once we had something but now it has gotten lost,

and the flaming sword I see in those trees somehow

bars the way back. We live in exile

and cannot return. We have lost something

I can neither name nor fully remember,

but I’m sure it’s real.

She scoffs.

For her there is only this moment,

this life,

this history

and none other, and she always becomes exasperated

when the loss she cannot admit is real

makes the tears burn in my eyes. But I can’t help

but notice how she covers herself in skins

even when we are alone together

and how she reddens when I come into the room

unexpectedly. She won’t confess it,

but she feels that ache in her molars as well,

the memory that lives where memories live.

Something is lost,

and how can we ever get it back

if we don’t admit it’s gone?

Loss

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