You Never Hear This Side of the Story (revised)

I'm not asking you to love me. You
Will not, but can't you understand?
I'm just a snake, a freighted creature,
In a garden, set-up piece, wound
Round a branch, within a tree, an
Apple tree, as you've been told, and
I espy a splendid woman. Splendid!
And I fall in love, though she is mated
With a man. The man is doughy,
Rather dumb, so I unwind, and push
My serpent's head beyond the apple's
Leaves, and tell that woman what he
Won't: that she's the sun which warms
My planet; she's the reason why I live,
And she turns. She says, “Are the
Apples tasty?,” and I say they are.
She bites. I didn't think she would,
And, afterward, the two of them,
The splendid woman and the doughy
Man, are cast into a desert. I remain
Within the garden. She grows
Sick, and I grow guilty. Nothing stays
As it had been, and I am sorry I
Stuck out my head. I never meant
To harm the woman who had been
My sun. I never meant to make myself
The archetype of all that's evil. I'd
Have been content to slither underneath
The apple's leaves, to live another
Thousand years and not have known
Of love.



Poetry by Lawrence Beck The PoetBay support member heart!
Read 73 times
Written on 2015-04-25 at 00:38

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