Eve walks the garden
mud splashed to her thighs
everything filmed with damp—
mushrooms sprout in the leaf layers,
tar spot blooms on the sycamore.
All summer the leaves blister
and fall out of season,
crinkle underfoot like shed snake skins—
blot, the neighbors complain, scourge, canker—
no, she assures them without rancor,
the tar spot’s dark roses innocent of sin
live their own reason—
my lovely fungus she calls it
my brooding sister.