Violet, whispered Eve, because
saying the names aloud
made the act too real. Pansy
and woodruff, the flowers so small
some of them, she was afraid
they’d be forgotten—though what did she know
about forgetting, when she had
no past at all? She took to her task
immediately, absorbed by the strange
courage to assign names to things. Adam
was on the other side of the garden, away
from her for the first time. Snapdragon
and Coral Bells; the sensuous sounds
rolled across her tongue, although
she didn’t know sensuous yet. The untrod
path curved to the right. She stopped. No, not
the apple tree: that will come soon
enough. Here a twisting vine knuckles
through the gate that separates them
from another world.
Wisteria, she says—aloud this time—the syllables
as liquid to her as the blooms
dribbling from the branches
like slow rain.
Heather Hallberg Yanda teaches in the English department at Alfred University in the hills of upstate New York.
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