144;

"Balance"

He couldn’t help himself;

there was too much laughter in the garden,

too much lightness. And didn’t everything

need a contrary, a counterweight?

He’d come up with gravity so the birds

couldn’t return to heaven, created

hairless skin so the feathered and soft-furred

wouldn’t feel envy for the man he made.

Sorrow, God said, sorrow.

He started small, a sparrow with a broken beak,

flapping at the woman’s feet. Not knowing

this was something new,

she sat beside it, waited for it to rise and sing.

A mole came next. Then from the lion

a coughing that wouldn’t stop. He thought

he’d gone too far with the dog and pulled back

a little, concentrated on one more way to make a beetle.

Finally Adam blamed her for all that happened next

and turned from her touch in their nest of yellow grasses.

God knew if he weighed their hearts at rest, they’d be

heavier than before. Sorrow, he said, thinking.

The lily pond grew fetid, the air smelled of rotting fur.

For a year Adam wouldn’t say her name.

Lorna Crozier

this one, on the other hand, is brilliant.