The Daughter Of Men

'Come, let us choose us wives. . .’
-Enoch 6:2

He crawled out of her window
in the middle
of the night
and uncurled himself onto a narrow
white strip of windowsill.

After a while, a tug of breeze
came and lifted him
above the houses,
until he was floating, like a piece of dark, upturned root,
into the garden
of the distant sky.

She lay on her bed,
full of gift,
and watched his delicate blue feet
disappear across the threshold.

For a long time, the memory of him
glowed
between her thin legs. . .
with her mind’s eye, she saw
his wings and his golden teeth
burning across her body.

In the warm spot
just behind her uterus,
she let herself feel the pulse
of sperm
he had left for her.

Potent, like a bright green river fish,
it glided deep inside.

Whichever cell it touched
transformed,
for half a second,
into a kind of living eye.

And when it finally found its mate,
she felt it tremble
with recognition:

until a stillness came
and a long, rich,
even silence.

Outside
the house,
deer with ornate antlers passed through
the new snow,
feeding on the nettles which grew
beside the frozen marsh.

A muskrat clucked
and cleaned its fur.

. . .

And somewhere underground,
a puzzle,
bent and half-blind
with age,
began to turn and solve itself.