I Wish I Had One Hundred Eves

by Eva Gellman
 
 
I would have one for all the thoughts in a day. I would spend all morning saying hello you Eve,
hello all you Eves.
 
I would line the Eves up and count them, just for the joy of lining the Eves up and counting
them.
 
I would never be finished. The Eve made of salt would slip through me, and the spiral Eve would
learn to split herself into twos, and soon I’d lose my place.
 
The Eves in the garden keep busy. One Eve turns into a wasp and buries herself inside a fig.
 
Two Eves, enwombed in the pond’s waters, suck on their toes and call them pomegranate seeds.
 
There is an Eve scaled in gold lamé, twisting her way up the trees. She hisses light, and I am sure
I could only love her more if she killed me.
 
The Eves watching from below grow dizzy. In these moments, they like to take off their heads
and hold them in their arms.
 
All except for the Eve who holds her eyes in her hands. She soaks them in a bowl of soft water
before serving them to the Eve who is hungry to be held.
 
There would be an Eve to feed me cherry pits sucked clean of meat, and another Eve to watch.
 
I eat thousands of these, and on the eve of too much, a third Eve climbs inside me and makes a
room. They call this the lovemaking.
 
There would be an Eve we could not see, an invisible Eve. She is the happiest of us all.
 
I sleep in the mouth of my most favorite Eve, the one who threatens to swallow me if I look in. 
She is my child.
 
The Evelyns too would be Eves, but I have nothing to say about them.
 
Where one Eve stops the next begins; it is no use describing how they look.