This selection, chosen by guest editor Amber Alexander, is from The Curator's Notes by Robin Rosen Chang, released by Terrapin Books in 2021.
The Snake
Listen here. Blame me,
then Eve all you want,
but it was Adam. Putting on
a show of innocence,
as if following Eve’s lead.
She’d allegedly seized my advice—
Ridiculous! Adam was
never smart, lazed around
while Eve tended the flowers,
trees, all the creatures.
She was kind, even to me,
unrattled by my cosmetics,
my forked tongue—no
more symbolic than Adam’s rib.
Careful where she stepped,
she didn’t hurt a living thing.
And generous. She let Adam play
with her long hair, tangle it
into knots when he was bored,
which was often,
so he wouldn’t keep spilling
his seed, which by itself
was useless.
The garden—
what did he do for it?
Or give her? At night,
babbling about himself,
in the morning, complaining,
too much birdsong,
the squirrels’ chatter, foolish.
Later, the chickens’ eggs, very yolky,
so he dropped them by mistake,
the goats’ milk, too sweet,
so he tossed it,
peppers, too yellow,
and that apple—so red,
off limits?
He didn’t
heed our warning.
Sank his teeth in—
then claimed it
too soft.
Robin Rosen Chang is the author of the full-length poetry collection, The Curator’s Notes (Terrapin Books). Her poems appear in Michigan Quarterly Review, The Journal, Diode, North American Review, The Cortland Review, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. She was the recipient of the Oregon Poetry Association’s Fall 2018 Poets’ Choice Award, an honorable mention for Spoon River Poetry Review‘s 2019 Editors’ Prize, and a 2021 Pushcart nominee. She has an MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.
Amber Alexander, who publishes creative work as e. holloway, is a poet based in Ohio. They currently work in higher education and as an Assistant Editor for Best Of The Net within Sundress Publications. Alexander is a former Editorial Intern for Sundress Publications, former Editorial Board Member for Cornfield Review, and was a Sundress Academy for The Arts Writing Resident in 2023. Their work has been published by Cornfield Review and earned multiple awards during undergrad at The Ohio State University.
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