Residual feelings
The day before Eden ended,
she spent mostly staring
out of windows, observing stretch marks
scar the sky, trees hunker down
in dusky, unconvinced gravel, a litter
of leaves grow in the stubble
of their shade. You had to delve deep
for moisture here, or hope
to extract it from the damp.
Other Eves paraded
their Adams in tow, perfecting obliviousness
to termites working just under the bark. She would
wish them better luck, leave them furniture
that couldn’t fit: chewed chairs,
wardrobes, their doors hanging slack, shrugging even
against that memory-testing, first spurt
of Ikea enthusiasm; kitchen units contriving
to belong better in a holiday flat
in Benidorm than her best attempt
at a proper home—background
to arguments played out
before imaginary juries, children yawning
from sheer discomfort.
Little to divide,
a lot to abandon, this Eden was an empty tube
of toothpaste, disconcerting only because,
through the habit of squeezing,
there had always seemed to be
that little bit more, something residual.
A terrier in his Eden
Workmen came. He watched them measure
out grass with abstract, hairy curiosity.
Their leader stretched his body
around imaginary trunks to demonstrate
how six, maybe seven could fit,
parked sensibly. The others sloped, semi-convinced.
This was a job to do so that other jobs could get done —
covering contingencies.
Then they bedded the lawn with a carpet of tar.
He waited for the last ribbed wheel to labour away
for a first, formal sniff. Caustic, simian trickery, this —
he nosed out quickly where corners curled,
revealing suppressed life: offered it a preliminary scratch.
Not easy, but with that canine certainty
that the surface is something to be worked
through, mere clusters of matter clinging
together, desperate bonds begging
to be simplified: specific, obdurate, volatile,
he sensed tiny spaces cede
into gaps, snuffed turgid fibres relaxing,
webbing the fabric of a wound;
he would worry at its scab, scent
where its ridges peeled away
from flesh, tenuous tissues unravelling
into reluctant filaments, blending nails into hair.
By the time the police arrived, unhitched themselves
from official upholstery with uniformed parsimony,
the prophet was up to his wrists in truth.
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