Exegesis
Conrad Geller
It seems our primal parents didn’t know
the rules and etiquette for eating fruit,
for she was lovely but a little slow,
and he, poor lad, was little more than brute.
The serpent tempted Eve, who was seduced
more by his markings than his argument.
She ate, and offered, and by that produced
the work and woe in which our lives are spent.
If she had eaten but her mate refused,
would God have then consigned just her to Hell,
brought Adam someone else, who might have used
her wiles to please her lover just as well?
That didn’t happen. They were both cast out,
and that’s what matrimony’s all about.