Garden of Eden
What magic there was in eating your green beans
that made you grow through the night as you slept
sweet and curled into dark like cocoons
I am in love with that trickery. Love is not
love but trickery, whomever is willing
to be coaxed toward light
with their pomegranate hearts,
jewels sparkling in the sun,
scar tissue walls all juice in tact ::
only tasted when broken.
The fact of the matter is fruit bruises,
and I am not looking for anything more
but to stop feeling bored and to find
ways to let a sweet thing inside me.
Lauren Sarrantonio is a graduate student of speech language pathology at SUNY New Paltz, with a special interest in end of life care. Her essay, “The Amorphous Children” can be found in Gandy Dancer issue 4.2. When she’s not reminding everyone in proximity of their mortality, she’s internally reciting the poem, “The Gate” by Marie Howe.