“The Entrance of Sin,” by Scott Cairns

For sin had made its entrance long before the serpent spoke, long before the woman and the man had set their teeth to the pale, stringy flesh.

I was moving around some books and notebooks this weekend, and a slip of paper fell out.  Resist beauty–and find yourself in an irresistible isolation, it said in pencil. A thought I’d forgotten I’d lost. After a little sleuthing, it turns out it wasn’t my idea, even if it is now, and not from a poem I wish I’d written, either, but from a Glen Workshop talk a couple of years ago (that, yes, I wish I’d written) by Scott Cairns.

Still, it’s nearly from today’s poem, in Cairns’ book Recovered Body (Eighth Day, 2003).