This week’s poem, Deborah Cummins’ “More,” revisits a very old story and character – one who some say has been given a bad rap. I love how vividly this poem brings us into the scene and the state of mind of its character, and how deftly Cummins endows her with new depth and agency.

Cummins is the author of a poetry chapbook, two full-length poetry collections, and a collection of essays that was a finalist in the 2013 Maine Literary Awards Best Book of Non-Fiction. One of those essays was listed as notable in “Best American Essays 2013.” Her work has appeared in nine anthologies and nearly 70 journals. She lives in Portland and Deer Isle.

 

More

By Deborah Cummins

 

Of course Eve wanted more.

Never a child, she woke one day

a grown woman, partner to a strange man

she didn’t know, in a land

not yet fully named.

 

No name yet for summer rain,

shadows among the clamoring leaves,

the plunge of bees purposeful in the lilies.

No knowledge of why flowers open

their colors to morning

or a heron lifts suddenly from the shallows.

 

Not yet a need to tilt her head back

to an iron sky just to feel snow licking her face.

Nor, with unfamiliar restlessness,

to retreat beneath a tree that never yellows

and have a good cry. But let’s say she did.

 

And there, beneath that tree, is where

she was found. Where desire wasn’t yet a word

but was known by her body. A hunger

unsated, in spite of all that abounded,

was within easy reach. As was, so it happens,

the apple, the hiss in her ear.

 

And let’s say she knew exactly

what she was doing. Not succumbing

but choosing. Not falling from

but into, and now with the knowledge

to know the difference.

 

Megan Grumbling is a poet and writer who lives in Portland. DEEP WATER: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “More” copyright © 2020 by Deborah Cummins, forthcoming in Until They Catch Fire (Deerbrook Editions). It appears by permission of the author.

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