How not to begin with you? You, though anonymous
at your genesis, were the first after all, to stir the will.
We could make the case that Eve was the thinker—
judging between adventure and fear—the Original Thrill
of discovering something untried pitted against
the free-falling-from-a-high-place kind of terror that comes
with the dare. How she must have wondered
at your luscious crimson, your globe-y solidity. Been drawn
by your smooth shine that, for her, having no precedent
to follow in her plunge, could end in Eureka! Or poison.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 16, Issue 1.
Bernadette McBride is the author of Waiting for the Light to Change (Word Tech Editions, 2013). A former Poet Laureate of Bucks County, PA, her poems have been recently published in the UK, widely published nationally, and have been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In October, 2013, Garrison Keillor read her poem “Flying Lessons” on the daily broadcast of NPR’s “The Writer’s Almanac.”
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