In truth there was never a snake or an apple;
and they knew already about lust, had known forever
what creature didn’t

It was that they lived long
saw the wolf and the tiger grow old and die
saw the tree fern and gingko wither and fall
saw even the snake
become food for vultures

It wasn’t sex they discovered
it wasn’t the knowledge of good and evil

they discovered death
and, terrified, they invented God

After spending almost twenty years chasing facts for The Boston Globe, Marty Carlock
decided it was more fun to make things up. Her poems and short fiction have
appeared in more than thirty publications.