Eve reimagines her beginning

“I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over man: she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived, and became a transgressor.”  (I Tim 2:11-14) 

Naming Adam

“She desires herself alone, fulfills her desire

becomes pregnant from that desire.”

               Reinventing Eve, Kim Chernin

Some say she was pulled from his rib

golden in the leaves of paradise

or rose from the spermy sea on a shell

foam on the salt waves.

But the first woman entered like lightning

from the wet red cave

a sea of milk in her breasts

rich menstrual blood in her womb.

She took of her blood

mixed it with clay, then swallowed it,

dancing, churned the moonblood

in her belly to a child.

From the cleft of light, the sacred

opening, the first man was born.

She licked her blood from the clay-wet form

breathed life into his mouth.

He called her Eve, because she was the mother

of all living beings.

She named him Adam, for the red earth

from which he was made.

(published, Poetry Canada, 1990)