Adam

On the third day I was dust,

ordinary common dust

like you see on a country road

in a dry spell nothing

expected of me, me

expecting nothing neither.

On the sixth day he comes along

and blows. “In my own image too,”
he says like he was doing

me a favor.

Sometimes I think if he’d

waited a million years

by then I’d been tired

maybe being dust

but after only two, three

days, what can you expect? I

wasn’t used to being

even dust and he goes

and makes me into Man.

He could see right away

from the expression on my face I

didn’t like it so

he’s going to butter me up

he puts me in this garden only I

don’t butter.

He brings me all the animals I

should give them names—what

do I know of names? “Call

it something,” he says, “anything

you want,” so I make names up—

lion, tiger, elephant, giraffe—

crazy, but that’s what he wants.

I’m naming animals since 5 a.m..,

in the evening I’m tired I

go to bed early, in the

morning I wake up, there she

is sitting by a pool

of water admiring herself.

“Hello, Adam,” she says, “I’m

your mate. I’m Eve.” “Pleased

to meet you,” I tell her

and we shake hands.

Actually I’m not so pleased—

from time immemorial nothing,

now rush rush rush; two

days ago I’m dust, yesterday

all day I’m naming animals,

today I got a mate already.

Also I didn’t like the way

she looked at me

or at herself in the water.

Well, you know what happened, I

don’t have to tell you, there

were all those fruit trees—

she took a bite, I

took a bite, the

snake took a bite and

quick like a flash—

out of the garden.

Now I’m not complaining;

after all, it’s his garden,

he don’t want nobody eating

his apples, that’s his business.

What irritates me is

the nerve of the guy.

I didn’t ask him to make me

even dust; he could have left me

nothing like I was before—

and such a fuss for one lousy

little apple not even ripe

(there wasn’t that much time

from Creation, it was

still Spring), I didn’t

ask for a mate, I didn’t

ask for Cain, for Abel, I

didn’t ask for nothing but

anything goes wrong, who’s to blame?

. . . Sodom, Gomorrah, Babel, Ararat . . .

me or my kids catch it,

. . . fire, flood, pillar of salt.

“Be patient,” Eve said, “a

little understanding. Look,

he made it, it was his idea,

it breaks down, so he’ll fix it.”

But I told him one day. “You’re

in too much of a hurry. In

six days you make everything

there is, you expect it to run

smoothly? Something’s always

going to happen. If you’d a thought

first, conceived a plan,

consulted a specialist, you

wouldn’t have so much trouble

all the time.”

But you can’t tell him

nothing. He knows it all.

Like I say, he means well

but he’s a meddler and

he’s careless. He could

have made that woman so

she wouldn’t bite no apple.

All right, all right,

so what’s done is done

but all the same he

should have known better

or at least he could have blown

on other dust.