Eve's Design

Then there's the Yemeni legend

of Eve in the Garden knitting

a pattern on the serpent's back,

the snake unfinished like the rest

of creation, the first woman

thinking to add design, a sheath

of interlocking diamonds and stripes

along that sensuous S,

knitting giving her time to learn

what's infinitely possible

with a few stitches, twisting cables,

hers a plan to mirror the divine

inner layer that can't be shed

no matter what it rubs up against.