Means of Defence

Means of Defence

I am not ready to ride
a white horse
to the land of the dead.

I will allow no toad to
jump over my foot.

Instead, I will throw a beautifully veined rock
inscribed with many abracadabras
over my shoulder and into a river flowing east;

bend, and find a clover with four leaves,
ask the eye of Horus to ward off evil spirits
and charm me with Elizabethan Injunctions.

I will recite incantations,
"hiccough, hiccough go away,
come again some other day".

I will think about the sign of the cross
I am sure I saw this morning
on the pined, sunlite mountain side;

as I was rubbing garlic into my open wounds,
wearing an amulet around my neck
and shouting, "devil be gone".

Bobbie Kilzer Gogain
added June 3, 2003