RAISING EVE IN A GARDEN OF ANCIENT RIVERS

Eve

Raising A Daughter In The Garden Of Ancient Rivers

Let not your daughter be beautiful, your pride and joy,
She is now a danger to herself, to your whole family.
Let her not remain naïve. Hide any innocence as a jewel.

Hope not now that your daughter is good to look at
Delight not in the glory of her long hair. No, shear
It all off quickly, cut it crew, shave her bald as a crone.

Admire not the softness of her young skin, age it
With flour and dough make wrinkles as sun does a prune,
mask her sweet dimples with rough gouged dungs of earth.

Allow not your daughter’s eyes to glow with any winsome
Allure. For such a light in the night of the world attracts
The light-bereft, the predators, wasps, bull hornets addicted

to the honey, with many stings of robotic cocked weapons
and automatic pinioning arms, the robotic urges of desire
that would turn her to empty, that would make a grave of her.

Erase all trace of your daughter’s loveliness, cover her
With rags, dress her with madness, allow her to speak only
The tongue of lizard and toad, with the voice of a hornet

That seems a sting to hornets, that cooks up potent bitterness,
One that bites like ticks, that draws blood from another's lust,
drains the vital fluid of the greedy, let her mirror such parasites.