He’s the original Adam, cable-knit sweater pulled down
over his missing rib. He’s thinking about ending things
with Eve—not because he doesn’t love her, I mean God,
look at their history—but because he can’t remember
what it was like before he had this slack fleshy gap
in his bones, a tender fontanelle that seems to invite
every sharp counter corner and heedless bicycle handlebar
and other glancing jabs, like the absence of notches
on his bedpost and numbers in the little black book
with page after page of inkless lines. It prompts him
to prod the hollow lamella over his cartilaginous cage,
to wonder if this perpetual stitch will ever ossify
and heal the horrible discomfort of knowing
there is only one woman who was made for him.