Love poem

The woman I love

braids her hair. She’s Eve

and Eve means breathe, to give life,

my wife, from Eva by way

of the Hebrew havah. At dusk

I unlock her hair

from the curves it’s learned.

Overnight it remembers

a simpler life. Come morning,

she misses weaving herself

into a basket. If we had only

this one ritual, I’d still

think the sky of my time

on this planet,

but there’s more. We wake

and kiss and eat and kiss

and talk and kiss and walk

among cedars and grow lines

around our eyes and mouths

and kiss as our sex dries out

and falls down and touch

as if no one were ever evicted

by a snake from bliss, if you

(and I hardly) can believe it.