Eve’s Blood
Did Eve fear death
the first time she bled?
Did she yell for Adam,
sweating from his labor,
to come running, afraid
he would be alone again?
How many days did she wait
and wonder,
cleaning,
bleeding,
avoiding her husband’s glances
and rough hands?
Did she dress and trudge through mud
to the altar
kneeling at silent stones,
her face to the wide sky
instead of her folded hands
as she did when Adam prayed aloud,
stretching his arms to welcome God back?
Would she get an answer to
“God, is this what you meant?”
Or did she smile, knowing she had chosen
this river of glistening blackness
liquid pleasure of earthquake
volcanic rip of childbirth
ebb and flow of ocean at her breast, all
that this blood would foreshadow:
God’s blood.
A native of the South, Elizabeth teaches composition and literature at a junior college in Atlanta, Georgia. She received her BA in humanities from BYU (which she loved!) and an MA in English literature from a little town in southern Georgia where football is king (which she couldn’t care less about). She is passionate about the gospel, eating good food without guilt, finding humor in most situations, and convincing young women that being thirty and single is not the end of the world.
