He’s the original Adam, cable-knit sweater pulled down

over his missing rib. He’s thinking about ending things

with Eve—not because he doesn’t love her, I mean God,

look at their history—but because he can’t remember

what it was like before he had this slack fleshy gap

in his bones, a tender fontanelle that seems to invite

every sharp counter corner and heedless bicycle handlebar

and other glancing jabs, like the absence of notches

on his bedpost and numbers in the little black book

with page after page of inkless lines. It prompts him

to prod the hollow lamella over his cartilaginous cage,

to wonder if this perpetual stitch will ever ossify

and heal the horrible discomfort of knowing

there is only one woman who was made for him.