From The Symposium, Plato

"When a pregnant creature comes close to something beautiful, it becomes gentle and joyfully relaxed, and gives birth and reproduces. But when it comes close to something ugly, it frowns and contracts in pain; it turns away and shrivels up and does not reproduce; it holds the foetus inside and is in discomfort. That's why those who are pregnant and already swollen get so excited about beauty: the bearer of beauty enables them to gain release from the pains of childbirth."

From The Postman Always Rings Twice, James M. Cain

I began to fool with her blouse, to bust the buttons, so she would look banged up. She was looking at me, and her eyes didn't look blue, they looked black. I could feel her breath coming fast. Then it stopped, and she leaned real close to me.

"Rip me! Rip me!"

I ripped her. I shoved my hand in her blouse and jerked. She was wide open, from her throat to her belly.

"You got that climbing out. You caught it in the door handle."

My voice sounded queer, like it was coming out of a tin phonograph.

"And this you don't know how you got."

I hauled off and hit her in the eye as hard as I could. She went down. She was right down there at my feed, her eyes shining, her breasts trembling, drawn up in tight points, and pointing right up at me. She was down there, and the breath was roaring in the back of my throat like I was some kind of animal, and my tongue was all swelled up in my mouth, and blood pounding in it.

"Yes! Yes, Frank, yes!"

Next thing I knew, I was down there with her, and we were staring in each other's eyes, and locked in each others arms, and straining to get closer. Hell could have opened for me then, and it wouldn't have made any difference. I had to have her, if I hung for it.

I had her.

(1934)

"Adam's Hand," Jennifer Clarvoe

"or Michael taking Adam by the wrist"


Is that when Adam has to leave the garden?
Does Adam's hand hang down? Is Michael cruel,
or does he think if he took Adam's hand
it might seem like a comfort, cruelly seem
like something else for Adam to let go?
And Eve, who isn't mentioned in the poem,
I picture Eve with both hands clasped behind her,
but not lagging behind. Nobody speaks.
And when they hear the rustling in the grass,
which cannot be Eve's dress, since Eve is naked,
Adam sweats. But Eve? My Eve remembers
the sliver of apple underneath her tongue,
the sticky imprint left in Adam's palm.