While Adam Slept

When rib became woman
did he wake immediately to see his love?
Or while Adam slept
did Eve have a night alone?

Did she run barefoot under the newly formed moon
cratered and burning brightly

Did she feel the silk of a silver lake on her bare skin,
a foreign but familiar womb

Did she sink her teeth into a fruit without consequence
and let the juice run in rivers down her flesh

Did she lay in the unconquered, weedless grass
unnamed and unashamed

Did she weave the wild stars into constellations,
contemplating the science of their creation

Did she sing, stringing together the first songs
to an audience of pines and tigers

Did she ask God the hard questions—
the ones her daughters would gnash and scream at midnight for centuries to come

Did she weep for the choices ahead,
the sins that she would willingly choose to free us all

When the divine anesthesia wore off
and she laid in his expecting arms
Did she have something that he could never understand
Do all Eve’s daughters have a moonlit night alone, burning inside them?