The condemnation of Eve

When Eve first bit into the apple and passed it to Adam
She was condemned and labour pain was the vengeance
But the suffering was far deeper and intense
Her perpetual plight as maternal source
For where she would seek to protect,
Her children would feel smothered
Where she would lay a safety net to soften their fall
They would say she had no confidence in them
When she would lie down with her child and hold the 2-year-old
baby, silently weeping for its future without a father
She would be be said to be suffocating it and draining
it of its skills in corporate adulthood success
Where she would be humbled and ask on its behalf for food,
and shelter, she would be shamed by them
For did she not believe in them
Did she not have pride in them
Was it her pride pricked or theirs
Where she could not speak in words as eloquent or
as quick or in thoughts as complicated
She would be deemed as a thing of the past
having fulfilled its role, incompetent and abrasive
emotional ineffectual, no longer needed
She, lying there with one thought, only of holding her own
Eve's eternal punishment, greatest sin
ceaseless in time, perhaps only recognised
on her departure is her unconditional love.