POETRY
All Saints
If Eve had a picnic across time
with an unlimited guest list
would she invite me?
Sitting on a soft bed of grass
in all her renewed unashamed beauty
she would pour out libations
from a bottomless vessel of sorrow
and all the women would nod
understanding
not so much with her weakness
but with assent to the heavy complexity
of all our decisions
The Saints in attendance would nod, too
as full of the flaw and flux of humanity
as they are of holiness
Kinship would bloom around us
drooping weightily from vines
where serpents twine
the sting of their fangs removed
by the compassionate hands that
washed all our dirty laundry clean
the same hands that helped Eve
back to her feet
when she fell
