WINGED INSECT TARGETS

*

The female, her, the distaff one

thought, on the side

of sound sense

Her, the feminine one

united in matrimony to the male,

to tarry, to effect the bringing back

of him, the hirsute one

So in harmony, next to each other

and belonging to them—

although smaller in comparison—

the boy

Contrary to expectation,

at which time the male returns

It's with another woman,

a Yankee,

joined in wedded bliss

Filled with disgrace,

the feminine one

of the first instance

takes her own life.

Oulipost #3 - Definitional Lit - the challenge being: Take a single sentence from a newspaper article. Replace each meaningful word in the text [verb, noun, adjective, adverb] by the dictionary definition. Repeat this treatment on the resulting sentence and so on, until you've had enough! Note that after only 2 such treatments with a relatively compact dictionary, even a 2-word sentence can produce an accumulation of 57 words.

Source Text: Edmonton Journal, Thursday April 3, 2014 - Section "What's On", Article "Butterfly Marks opera anniversary". (Dictionary used for alternate definitions - The Heritage Dictionary of the English Language)

Note - taking liberties with the instructions, I used only part of the title, and I decided to use two sentences (not one) and only one run-through with the alternate definitions.

Here is the "original" text:

Butterfly Marks

She thinks, with reason, that she is married to him, and waits for his return together with their little son. But when he does come back, he has his American wife on his arm, and in shame, she commits suicide.

*artwork - fbouvier