by Matthew J. Andrews
(after Scott Erickson’s With)
I know all about those two trees:
the hand-slapping branches
of the forbidden one
that first day and the fruit-swollen
canopy of the one
waiting at the end of time.
It’s the space between
where I do my study: my hand
flipping through the book
looking for leaves, for splinters
of bark, the pages crumbled
by the sap on my fingers.