Portrait of Eve as Taína

Something
slithers past,

God, maybe, like milk,
non-singular.

This hiss
a proof of my

mothering I bury
in the earth.

Snap at the neck, said
the voice angled

through
the trees. Then:

unbury the arrow,

unbreak the neck, unpart
the water. I wait

for something
to spill.
But before —