Eden

In the Happo-En Garden, Tokyo  
Linda Pastan

The way a birthmark
on a woman's face defines
rather than mars
her beauty,

so the skyscrapers--
those flowers of technology--
reveal the perfection
of the garden they surround.      

Perhaps Eden is buried
here in Japan,
where an incandescent
koi slithers snakelike

to the edge of the pond;
where a black-haired
Eve-san in the petalled
folds of a kimono

once showed her silken body
to the sun, then picked a persimmon
and with a small bow
bit into it.