Miss Fortune

People can come in and buy anything: 

medicine, homemade bread, a bright
future, or a deck of tarot cards. I cast
spells on empty beds, mutated animals,
unrequited turned requited, loneliness
cured. I’ve learned to read broken guitar
strings, spit, and you’d be surprised
how a person’s fingernails can be a memoir.
Using the intelligent tissue, muscle memory
willing, I can still take a reading off a box
of clipped nails (shaken and spilled),
pocket lint, and some knotholes are bustling
with stories, if you just look and listen.

Bob, a homeless man with a ruddy nose,
is a filthy, but powerful man who comes
in from time to time. He sometimes sneezes
out the lights, then he lands his piss on
imaginary rodents in the store. My poor
piss-soaked floor, the deranged corner
curling with urine. The bubble in my linoleum
threatens my impolite customers. I smack
him with my broom, and he leaves.

A doctor is measured by the size of her
car, and of course by sporting a barely
helpful latex glove, and a stethoscope
around her neck. In my window is a dirty
hand whispering in a jar. It’s the first thing
they see, and it waves them in. Some have
made offers for the relic, but mostly
they only come in to argue. They accuse
me of playing make-believe. Their grins of
pure profit, singing such shiny prattle
into the ears of my most desperate patrons,
medical journals, slammed down like a bible.
My head boils, and something breaks.