All Eve's children

Christian Century, Jan 24, 2006 by Bonnie Thurston

All Eve's children

   It was not meant as exclusionary,
   the way the boy
   laid his arm along the pew,
   not touching her back
   but cupping the bowl of his hand
   over the girl's shoulder,
   exactly the way
   his father encircled his mother
   in decorous Sunday embrace.

   Near in age and adoring,
   his forsaken younger sister
   saw the story of all Eve's children,
   an enacted parable of man leaving
   father and mother to cling to wife,
   heard Scylla and Charybdis' seductive hymn,
   felt the tension of two great loves,
   perceived in a piercing moment
   ties tighter than the bonds of blood.