The allusion, of course, is to Eve in the garden of Eden and the snake.
The room the poem refers to is the laundry room... shed skins = cloths.
The "snake" of the Bible story has had many suggestions for meaning. I have always thought of it as "self knowledge", curiosity, learning. A possible interpretation might be that while the woman is doing her laundry ( which is a very boring task) she is day dreaming about potential, life, adventure.
Could you please tell me who/ what is the persona and who/what it is talking about?
I got the idea of a snake and a spider but the two together don't make much sense in the context.
I would really appreciate a fast rerply!
"Eve" - by James Lasdun
I like that room,
the warm one with the machines
where the woman folds her shed skins.
I hang in the broken ceiling, watching her,
barely distinguishable
from the cold water pipe
and the coiled power cable.
I watch her all winter:
her long-legged hands,
the glinting needles of fur at her nape,
her red warmness
drifting in mammaly billows.
And now I show myself;
pour my flickering head
into her sac of air,
and slowly, willed against her own will,
her face rises like a rising moon,
opening palely to mine,
and in the wide O's of her eyes,
I see myself: my head like a big cut jewel,
the little watch-jewels of my eyes, yes,
my tongue the alive nerve of a rock,
and I feel her want,
a yearning almost,
as though for something already about to be lost,
And I offer myself.
1 answer
1 answer