More subtil than any beast of the field. Genesis 3:1

This is no longer the serpent in its own world.
Now this is the world—
cracked, broken like dry ground,
glistening like sloughed skin.
The world after the curse.

The garden, once heavy with fruit
now groans barren.
Dust mingled with suffering,
beauty entwined with threat.
Creation laced with the sinuous scars of sin.

A world reflected in the eye of the dragon.
Not shaped by fang or claw,
but by subtlety.

An eye that seeks,
an eye that waits.
Not wild,
not bestial,
not driven by hunger—
but by the scent of weakness.

Intelligence coiled in patience.

When cherubim shut the gates of paradise,
the Serpent became the world of men:
carnal, sensual, and devilish.
Genesis made landscape.
Transgression, not as act—
but as atmosphere.

Refined.
Older than Eden.

Enduring.