Chapter 8: Adam and Eve

I: Faith

“Shush!” I hissed at Cooper.

“I’m just saying: he’s been here four days now and all he’s written is a single poem?” he said, stage-whispering.

“Shhh!” I repeated. Zane had lifted his eyes toward us, and he returned them to the page in front of him.

“This is called ‘Port of Cartagena,’” he said, and flicked the end of the page with his finger.

“The water spreading its hand under a wood of pining sky-white masts

while the gathering islands just beyond reassemble a puzzle of bays.

Bridges north, and still as thunder, flexing in their iron casts,

flirt with a sun all fair and blond that goes home always with the days.”

“Mawkish pap,” Cooper muttered.

“Cooper! Hush!”

“The terns and gulls that come to plunder the gems the low-tide has amassed

in the morning’s stony ponds before light rises up in praise:

These and other debts of wonder I let flow and idle past

While my eyes keep their rarer bond with her wandering in my gaze.”