The Elusive Prose Poem

In the garden there lived a snake and two humans. One was a man. One was a woman. The snake fell in love with the woman, but she only had eyes for the man. In his misery, the snake began to eat. He slunk around the garden, snipping berries from shrubs, moss from rocks, eating round the garden in decreasing concentric circles. He put on quite a bit of weight. Finally, he worked his way to the center of the garden and saw a tree with indeterminate fruit on its branches. Easily enough, he crawled up the trunk and nibbled on the fruit that tasted like grapes, dates, citrons and wheat all at once. It was delicious, despite the strange hybridization. The lovesick snake was epiphanized. He sailed down the tree, across the garden to where the man and the woman lay entwined on the grass. They didn’t notice the snake because they were too busy combing each other’s bodies with their eyes. The snake sidled up alongside the man and nipped his backside. The man got up to tend to his wound, leaving the woman alone on the grass. Whereas the snake slid up to the woman and licked her face. How sweet, she exclaimed. She raised herself to her side and stroked his neck. The snake motioned with his head for her to follow him, and led her to the tree in the center of the garden. I mustn’t, said the woman, bad for my stomach. Well, if you insist... And she plucked a fruit from the tree and bit into it. Her eyes opened wide as she looked around. When they settled on the snake, she jumped. A snake, a snake she cried. The man came running (as quick as he could with an ice pack glued to his backside). My darling, my angel, my cliche of cliches What is it? he cried. A snake, a snake she cried. So? he asked. The woman berated him, You ignoramus Don’t you know that snakes are horrible, hideous, dangerous? Of course, the man didn’t know, and he was embarrassed in front of the woman. How do you know this? he demanded, disguising his emasculation with bravado. The woman paused. I think it’s the fruit, she said, though she knew this was silly. The man, not knowing it was silly and not wanting the woman to call him an ignoramus again, picked a fruit from the tree and bit into it. He pondered the taste, and his eyes grew wide as he fixed on the snake. A snake, a snake he cried. And the man and the woman ran out of the garden. And the snake scurried after them, crying, wait, wait