"Leaving Eden" by Brett Shaw
- May 23
- 1 min read
She likes her grapes frozen.
He can’t stand the texture. She
drops two or three into a glass
of Pinot Gris. Summer’s a porch
screened by burgeoning gardens.
Already floras enclose, obscure them—
He serves breakfast nude
each weekend. She paints him
from memory, her colors homage
to tanager and towhee— What was
once shameless now carries intricacies,
innumerable steps (tempo
dawns). Their dance, not rote,
but rueful as moonbeams escaping grasp.
The trailing light of one more country
they no longer touch. Watching the storm,
chain lightning moves her to her
girlhood, braiding white clover— Through
panes he watches wind and rain
blur each tree to flame. Wondering if this
is his inability to distinguish color, or
just a desire to let what could kill them grow
impressionistic enough to survive? Tell me
what you see, she says. He takes
her hand. Thinks he’s most with her
when she’s with him. She thinks
she’s most with him when they part.
Brett Shaw is a poet living in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Recent work appears or is forthcoming in The Georgia Review, Afternoon Visitor, Antiphony, and elsewhere.