my original sin lacks
the notoriety
of a desert garden
no heavisome stricture
about fruit or know-how
just fescue in suburbia
a yard braced by big granite
and the long sweep
of a weeping willow

Mine is many in one
meddling with nature
lusting to own the color
so enchanted by its blue,
a genuine hue well beyond
what crayons drew
and not the least, a special
idiocy persuading me
to take more than a look

Sins all, deep in the desert
where gods began
mine a dirge of despair
of dolorous cries
of tortured screeches

Bobbing to elude the robin
I stole the egg
enthralled by its lily lightness
I motioned to sit
on a thick limb
but the mother’s peck
upset my poise
and I fell into a first fall,
bound by a new gravity.

In plummet I held the shell
out to try and protect it
but when I landed my palm
closed and crushed it.

My tears crashed on
the last likeness of life,
the yolk and albumin
themselves weeping
through my fingers,
heightening that darkening
of me,

Me, the man still in fall.