Eve, We Run Wild
by Ren Marie Rodriguez
Eve, we reap wild out in the soybean field
You have to watch for the rattlesnakes out here, I told you
But you’ve been bit before and open some wounds
with ease and no suspension—
it’s of no concern to you
Eve, we run wild
Blades of slate ever out of reach
halting, gasping
I’m tongue-tied but your mouth keeps moving and
hurling sounds that I misunderstand
And do I take offense? Possibly
Sensitive peony with your infinite weightless petals,
fractured petals, what are you doing running?
What are you doing out of breath?
Isn’t your fabric too delicate
for that stitch in your side?
It was the flood of the century
I gathered up in a tartan throw and we stood still
and delayed—a headstrong suffering. Years
later I avoid my reflection, cos Eve,
there’s blood on my hands
That tragic business echoes
over those rattlesnakes and onyx soil
And no matter where we stir, it pursues—
steadfast, intense, unchanged
The load ripens in our marrow—pricks a spasm
with its vibration and they find us on the far side
of exhaustion
We fall wild into the fault line
of the promises and the shelter
the dead leaves and falling rain
the loneliness and the waiting
And I know I’m too young and too old to understand
what I heard—these stories aren’t mine
and that’s the problem, they’ve always been mine
I reach alone here, I go alone there
Slay at all the banquets without spilling a
drop, in a smile that shows
ten horse teeth, yet inside my veins sob and beg of skin
Go! Run! Hide!
Wrap your arms around the bark of
the black walnut tree and hold tightly. This is
rock bottom—find the roots. They will give answers you
need as they remove a lung
Carnivorous roots. They tie you to the whipping
post on your way to work
You arise, seasons move, and
I don’t
know my name
I bend copper and stoic in the spin cycle
Eve, we seek wild but
home falls fast, night falls first, and we consume
and after the rain, will I know my name?
Endure,
you say
Drained of the performance, the frock. This lantern
isn’t lit like everyone else
but I see the dreams Eve, there is that wellspring,
the fountainhead, and I’ll spit it out and lean in
once and for all
But that’s for the lionhearted, isn’t it?
That’s for someone who sets the world on fire
and I don’t even know my name
About the Author
Ren Marie Rodriguez is a fine art photographer and aspiring poet, and a graduate of The American Musical and Dramatic Academy NYC. She lives in Asheville, NC, with her husband three neurodiverse children. She is inspired by childhood imagination, Pre-Raphaelite art, the deep dark forest, all things Victorian, God and all the angels and saints. She has a passion for language, theatre, poetry, philosophy, and family.