Marianne Shaneen

The Peekaboo Theory



with you no longer living in our apartment at least I can't
be guilty of 'Overlooking'--gazing too long upon a coveted
object, imposing the evil eye, causing illness, poverty,
injury, loss of love, death.

facina: of the eyes, to stare

envy: evolved from the Latin verb, invidere: to see into

jealous of strangers that graze your hand while giving you
change or gaze into the back of your neck while standing
behind you in elevators, envious of this page as you read
it--in case a message can be infected or can transfer the
evil eye, I have enclosed an apotropaic charm of blue glass,
resembling an eye, which mirrors back the blue of an
invidious eye in order to confound it--such charms, common
in the Middle East, are blue because the stranger who is
feared for his covetous gaze is blue-eyed: a Westerner


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