Ripe Figs (Poetry)

Long ago in some wild garden, Adam plucked a handy leaf
and began a modest fashion - tucked his manhood snug beneath
an organic-grown adornment deeply lobed in subtle green,
ecologically friendly, macho-cool in the extreme.

Eve could barely hide her feelings, thought it simply infra dig
to bedeck her perfect body with a drooping sappy sprig
bearing horticultural labels - genus Ficus - quaintly billed
the His 'N Hers of hippy Eden, unisexed and chlorophylled

foliage that's prêt á porter, multisized, fresh off the twig,
in the season's favourite colour, photosynthesized and big.
Large enough to fit or flatter and perpetuate the myth
that proportion doesn't matter (thought such claims are full of pith).

Eve was, frankly, disillusioned, (genitalia apart),
by the wrinkled crop he offered, purple-skinned, so small and dark.
She preferred a Cox's Pippin, blushing firm right to the core,
tempted Adam with a nibble, crisp and juicy, red and raw.

Just one bite and he was nobbled - found he couldn't give a fig
for his wilting, but still glossy, simulated leather rig;
cast it off in sheer abandon, took the air au naturel;
frolicked in unfettered frenzy, ate the fabled fruit of Hell.

And the worm within the apple gorged the white, forbidden flesh
while the fig stayed uncorrupted, proved immune to sin's duress,
and thus gained a reputation of an unexciting sort,
deemed untimely in its harvest and more often fit for nought

than old herbal applications as a poultice for a boil
or a medicine so sickly that both tongue and bowels recoil.
But it's late figs that prompt passion in the fruit bowl connoisseur
who appreciate their cycle, knows his taste buds will concur

as the syrup runs in rivers and the flesh dissolves in bliss,
surely Adam's fleeting ecstasy was never sweet as this,
and Eve proved too impatient - her genetic prototype
had gobbled down the first green fig before the thing was ripe.