Eve Couldn’t Hardly Wait to Go

These graph-paper suburbs, rows
Crossing rows of rimose roads,
How folks love to live in them,
Mortgage your futures to them,
Retire to them, and mock them.
How those born to them flee them
Only to return to them,

Still dreaming of skyscrapers
And idyllic cottages
And lives of great adventure.
Meanwhile, the northern flicker
Squeaks, the house finches gather,
The sparrows and collared doves
Descend to irrigated

Edens where the waters swell
From God’s piping underground,
And a few of you take walks
Or cycle some laps around
Your cracked, contrived paradise
Preaching all you’ll ever need
To know of gardens. You leave.