E l l e n B o y e t t e —
EVANGELINE (32-60)
32. Decoy, decanter.
33. Arbitrary in Evangeline’s blood thinner dinner.
34. In fir concentrate, I prepare the tough Cornish hen.
34.1 For who among us can say psychotropic and not picture a tiny umbrella resting in ice?
34.2 And too, the ewe doesn’t mind it lapping blunt periphery.
35. Dropped by the coal-colored fence.
35.1 Hence the coarse erection of statues.
36. Cucumber mask, flask, thirteen blue eggs
36.1 In translucent orange, scrip on the cover
36.2 Beside the console
36.3 In attack mode.
37. A slow-mo reading of Dover Beach.
38. Six leaf clover.
39. She does not see it coming.
40. Rummaging through a filing cabinet at the stoop sale, Evangeline.
40.1 By stoop sale, I mean the collective unconscious.
40.2 By I, I mean the stoop sale.
41. Given the right homeopathic aromas, saliva enters every crevice.
42. The number fourteen.
42.1 Distance, time, legality, hair.
42.2 The age fourteen.
43. Rubber bands, letter opener, blithe engraving.
44. Evangeline, I say with a gut full of woe, the crows have their eyes on you.
44.1 By crows, I mean surveillance cameras.
44.2 By crows, I mean Wrangler jeans bought in 1984 and chore charts.
44.3 See number 32 for further clarification.
45. The names of Grecian trees in green flame.
45.1 I wash the toaster for the guests who will not come til January.
45.2 I cannot drink milk with a mouth full of January’s translucent covers.
45.3 I cannot force her to hug scissors limping over Corpus Christi.
46. Evangeline’s closet contains rolled up clues.
46.1 Chewing gum and filet mignon.
46.2 Maps of clapboard cupboards.
46.3 The letter V.
46.4 Privacy being the jealous variable, I cannot speak of further keepsakes.
46.5 She does not see them coming.
46.6 [Eve][Anne][Gel][Lean]
47. White noise in the radiator.
47.1 Black noise in the aviator.
47.2 Elevator. Elevator. Evangeline.
47.3 Ewes in the dreams of furious henchmen.
48. Visine, fruit emojis.
49. Liverwurst, spare tires for hearses. Evangeline on my shoulders in a photo from 1391.
49.1 When the argument was low key garden variety.
49.2 When the weather was on her shoulders and the UV rays were on its shoulders and the sighs of babies were wrapped in foil.
49.3 When carcass. When rarified gems. When she does not see it though clearly.
50. The snake plants, thriving. The icon in lowlight not doing so hot.
50.1 Evangeline as an iconographer, insusceptible to statistics.
50.2 Rigid bitches limping towards numeric tattoos she called them.
50.3 By them, I mean statistics.
50.4 By tattoos, I mean cattle tags.
51. She speaks of the red room from Jane Eyre when she sleeps with damp hair.
51.1 By her hair, I mean her hair.
51.2 The guests will fail to acknowledge the precious or invoke it pejoratively.
51.3 Jewelry box filled with matches.
51.4 Evangeline my little secret, my whittled voodoo doll.
51.5 Pollinated perennial beneath the mower.
52. Neosporin fingerprint, I swab the closet door.
52.1 I need a hint, a honeymoon.
52.2 A room inside the radio.
53. Or dinner’s heady.
53.1 Look, she says, I’m as long as the table.
54. As long as we’re on the subject, the table, it.
55. I disinvite the guests.
56. Evangeline, I say, show me what they did to you.
57. She is gone for three days and returns with a quart of milk and art we cannot afford.
58. My liberated deliberate debilitated.
59. Doors that lock from the outside.
60. She writes the word epidural on a stranger’s hand and walks away.
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