When The Snake Bit Yvi

by Jordan Thomas Mitchell

It was still dark inside the gardens

when the snake slithered past the threshold
and entered the sacred space where Atoumn held Yvi.

They were always naked and she often got cold

so he would hold her when the sun wasn’t there
as an emblem of god’s love.

The snake kept distance just enough to drink

up the infrared image of the holy couple sleeping peacefully
under the protection of a rhododendron.

They breathed slowly and deeply in the dim moments

before the holy garden welcomed morning light and because
their bodies knew neither fear nor lust
their scent was like the essence of a mystical perfume.

Watching as they dreamt in the embrace of their own

beauty the snake felt disgusted and before the sun
could brush the first couple with love, it withdrew.

Atoumn opened his eyes first and looked at Yvi

sleeping in his arms, when a butterfly landed on her face
and she lifted her eyelids so that her pupils
bore straight into his—

God laughed because later people would say that time had stopped
in such instances, but time hadn’t even begun.

Thus, it was the same everyday;

they would bathe in the pure waters of an earthen spring
which fed all the gardens with magic, singing
in unidentifiable tongues with song birds.

Atoumn would run his fingers through Yvi’s hair

and she would scour his skin with mud that glittered
with the gem dust from which it was composed.

It was like an astral hologram seen by god

to meditate and reflect on his own grandeur,
Eden itself a microcosmic mirror of the divine body.
But the snake, preferring to remain full of wit,
Recognized God’s narcissism,
and was hated by god for remaining cold.

Yvi sat in the sun holding her breasts and smiling

so that when Atoumn knelt before her holding a succulent fruit
to her perfect lips, she closed her eyes and bit the flesh,
sighing passionately with love of health.

The divine couple wrapped in each other’s arms,

asleep again in the late morning sun,
appeared before the snake through branches of a fruit tree.

Visions bewitched the woman’s mind

and excited by her musk spreading in the air
like a cloud of poison the snake moved closer
hissing between her ears, “Yvi.”

As she chased the snake’s apparition across

dark expanses of botanicals, Yvi couldn’t really see
since the gardens had folded in on themselves
the babbling brooks, fern meadows, ornate rock forms,
and then dust…

A small withered tree waited in a corner

that produced thorn bushes and cold air,
even though the entire plot of Earth was black
and smoldering with small flames licking out of the soil.

Yvi covered her face to abate the fumes but progressed forward
because she knew with every ounce of her powerful
feminine intuition that the withered tree was what she sought.

A single red apple remained on the wood and as her fingers

approached the snake materialized on the branch
from which the apple clung, slid onto the fruit
and bit Yvi on the wrist.

Atoumn was sweating and afraid when he found Yvi lying

on her back with her fingers between her teeth
and her other hand rubbing steadily between
her legs chanting his name “Atoumn”.

Kneeling into her, Atoumn ate from Yvi’s divine fruit,

and became infinitely aware of poison, knowledge, wisdom
and with the spilling of his seed, he became aware
that he himself was god.