One day Adam said “Adam”
and found out he was standing
across the field from everything
else. It scared him half to death.
He lifted his arms as if they
could help. The air felt cool.
So he said “air” and “cool”:
a population of not-Adams
sprouted everywhere. One
of them was Eve, a wild card.
He heard her clearly, distinct
from his internal voice, his
private naming. She was singing,
“In time, the Rockies may tumble,
Gibraltar may crumble . . . ,”
and sure enough, it was
something o’clock already.
He saw that her mouth was pink.
“Pink,” he said, because it was
small and had lips to push the air
away. And there was something
else, he was sure of it, a softening
of the air between them,
a spell. Nothing could be the word
with the wound of it, the chink
between subject and object.
Light entered, memory followed
and began to tell its own story.
He felt himself held in it,
traveling within it, now,
driving toward a particular town.
“Something’s happened,”
he said to her, but she’d guessed
the doom of it already, the wooden
signs along the highway
bravely standing for everything
that matters: Burma Shave,
Kollectibles Kottage, The Cock
& Bull. She ran a finger delicately
along the window as if she could
trace what it was that had
broken loose from the two
of them, that was running crazy
out there, never looking back.