Onomathesia

(Vico's term for Adam's naming of the animals)

The squirming things came easiest: worm,

for instance, was the way his tongue recoiled

against its image in the dust. The oiled

flash of scales, the rustled grass, when turned

through his teeth became a whistling: serpent.

Other names, too, rose up and passed his lips

precisely: hawk for the creature that tips

its wings to wind with force, ox for burdened.

But woman was the sound ambivalence made.

It opened out, this word, the fragile edges

of the narrow life he knew, worked a wedge

between his body and the world; it frayed

away his faith. How could he form a name to fit

her solitude, and her love- what would he call it?