Judson Jerome

Eve: Night Thoughts

Okay, so the wheel bit was a grinding bore
and fire a risk in the cave, never mind the dogs
he brings home, and cows: but I can endure
his knocking rocks for sparks and rolling logs.
It's his words that get on my nerves, his incessant naming
of every bird or bug or plant, his odd
smirk as he commits a syllable, taming
Nature with categories—as though the Word were God.

Okay, so statements were bad enough,
and accusations crossing, spoiling digestion.
But then he invented the laugh.
Next day he invented the question.
I see it: He's busy building a verbal fence
surrounding life and me. But already I
counterplot: I'll make a poem of his sense.
By night, as he dreams, I am inventing the lie.

— Judson Jerome