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.
Source: Poetry (June 2001).
