The Tree in the Midst

Long after they had lost sight of the couple

and the story that trailed after them,

the cherubim kept glaring at the horizon,

shrugging their wings at each other

and shifting their weight from fore

to hind paws. Meanwhile,

the unforbidden animals—indohyus,

field mice, Persian ground jays,

worms, salamanders, ants and so forth—

ate as always from the tree of life

and also from the tree of knowing

good fruit from fruit gone bad—

a knowledge the human animals

had picked up by watching them

from hiding. Only the Eternally

Inexperienced One had never

tried so much as a single deep ripe

pomegranate aril. It knew no more

than the cherubim that down among

the butterfly weeds the two trees

become one trunk. And so It saw to it

that the cherubim kept an eye out

for the humans, lest they lose their taste

for each other and the world, find their way

back to the pomegranate, get fed up

with living and become one of them.