Sunday poetry

The Paradise Flick

How do we know Eve and Adam were happy,
deprived, as they were, of a childhood?

Eve never knew, unlike Adam, a world
that was free of the chatter of others.’

How did she cope? And how could she choose,
if she’d wanted, to live by herself?

What did the man eat that made him hear voices,
while Eve was inventing frustration?

Where could she go for a break from the sound
of Himself, in his skin suit, like Tarzan,

assuring the bush that he’d just given birth to a woman?
Did she smile at the fool, or remind him that he was

asleep when she turned up and found him?
Where could she go to be shot of his need for a mother?

(A pity she woke him.)
Life for them both was a training film shown in real time,

on the zen of zoo-keeping.
When the encyclopedia seller arrived, who could blame her for buying?

No exit pollster asked how she felt
when she left at the end of the movie.

~ Michael Sharkey