onto the scarred mahogany table,
bends his bald head to study the results.
The dry, scaled skin stretched
thin as vellum across his glistening
black dome which begins to bob
up and down like a mesmerized cobra.
He mutters something in unintelligible Cajun,
looks up and tells me,
with a wide toothless grin,
that I’m under a curse
that’s why bad things keep happening to me.
He tells me it’s a generational curse;
something my grandfather
or great grandfather did a hundred years ago
is the cause of all my misfortune.
He hands me a small bag
called a gris gris,
that smells of earth and herbs,
tells me to wear it close to my heart
but if I really want to be free
I have to bury an egg
in a cemetery at midnight.
He takes my forty dollars
and sends me away.
Beneath me I can feel
the bones of my ancestors
rattling their innocence.
Published in Abbey, 2011
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