Brianna Albers

Michael Sins

*(After Yasmin Belkhyr)*

Michael comes in the middle of the night,

brings her Bible tracts and apples from Jehovah’s

garden. Sometimes, on good days, it rains bread.

Others, and Eve is left to scrounge. At night,

she shoots at limping calves, follows rabbit tracks

through drifts of red snow. Memory is unforgiving,

here. Eve is soft and full of rot. Meanwhile,

Eden shrinks. Jehovah’s temper settles and swells.

The cottage is small, Eve says, but she has learned

to make do. She strangles birds. Michael laughs

and the doves cry; the birds are yet to die beyond

the town line. Eve sits with her legs crossed

at the ankle, tongue between her teeth. The river red

and currant orange, she bites into one of Jehovah’s

apples, leaves her gap-toothed kiss on its bruised

and blessed skin. Sweet, Michael thinks. Sweet.