If I grow sane in my old age,
     will his apple pass through this throat
     my ancestral pain chokes with doubt,
plentiful and without a way

to be shown out? ’No reason old
     habits should cease, nor should we take
     a more righteous route just to say
what he would not; by a lie caught

in this lace his spider legs laid,
     too close to the truth to tear out
     what old ropes sew: the path a boat
no Hell-bound ferryman would trace

without drawing down what bruised fruit
     the damned’s blackened flesh demands; crates
     of a cargo human hands make,
not knowing those laid on them move

weight too burdensome to be prayed
     away, pages of pain no books
     should be opened to hold, but cooked;
horrible thoughts burned at the stake

whenever we open earth, shrouds
     slit instead of our throats his blade
     would rather have kissed, since to wake
knowledge before lips are allowed

to use it, makes useless such paint
     as this stuff our creator put
     into us to make more lucid
these wet dreams Adam, in those days,

wanted to be less about love
     and more like himself: fists of clay
     rubbed until hard enough to lay
with, spilling come instead of blood,

watering deserts with thick dregs
     of sweating effort intended
     to whiten Life’s great wide way, yet
giving to my journey new legs

if only just to say the hole
     is where the heart is; a new day,
     with its allure of fresh breath, takes
from all this loneliness its low.