Debra Wierenga

Self-Portrait as Eve

I never use a peeler. I prefer the sweet frisson of a paring knife chasing my thumb around an equator of red-green globe. I’m a risk-starved wife, peeling apples for a son who insists on naked fruit. I eat a snake coil of skin and he says I’m disgusting, then kisses me on the mouth.

I’d do it all again-marry the man, carry the sons. I’d eat the whole McIntosh, seeds and all. But I keep an eye peeled for that serpent. I’m yearning for another Fall and watching for new fruit to grow-there’s something else I need to know.

Robert Perkins, Debra Wierenga, Self Portrait as Eve, 2007 will be part of the final presentation of Robert Perkins’s two-part exhibition entitled The Written Image at Benjamin Spademan Rare Books in London November-December 2017. The artwork to go alongside this poem can be found as the front cover of this issue.