Very Superstitious

source

Say a prayer beside your bed

Hope that you don't wake up dead

Throw the salt and knock on wood

so that all your luck is good

Spit three times and close the books

Make sure that you count the rooks

Leave the house the way you came

If you don't, then you're to blame

Charms ward off the evil eye

Keep one close and don't ask why

Mend your clothes and chew a thread

Cut a cross into your bread

Bird in house and hat on bed

Both bad signs, will lead to dread

Close the casket when you die

Fear to look death in the eye

Hang a horseshoe on your door

Don't let luck spill on the floor

If you think that it's a game

Burn in Hell's eternal flame

You must watch each step you take

I tell you this for your own sake.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, FB Friday for which we are to write something spooky!

Mother

You always called me

your little tsouris

I thought it was a term of endearment
Like a lost word,

[it comes] back unbidden *

with your memory

You said you knew

the dark spirits would follow me

because my name was uttered

in your eighth month
 You tried

to love me but

when you looked at me,

you saw the dybbuk

and recoiled

You accused me 

of trying to turn you into a ghost

when I named my doll after you

I didn't know

I was only ten

On your grave today

I placed a stone

I'm still trying, Mother.

* For Ella's prompt, we were instructed to include a line from a ghost poem. I chose "Unbidden" by Rae Armantrout

Poet's Notes: I've made mention of several Jewish words superstitions in this poem:

• tsouris = heartbreak, worry
• uttering baby's name during pregnancy will alert evil spirits
• dybbuk = an evil spirit that possesses the living
• naming a baby after someone still alive is akin to wishing them dead
• instead of flowers, Jews place a stone when visiting a grave

submitted for Magpie Tales, Mag 242
and Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Play It Again, Toads #10, Hallows Edge