“Malocchio” by Erhard Paskuda

grandma’s kitchen

immaculate white

painted cupboards

and wainscoting

dangling my little

boy legs from her

oversized praying

chair under the

lachrymose gaze

of an heirloom

carved crucifix

crackle-glazed dish

of fine faience

at rest on my lap

water filling its low

shallow purposeful

bowl as she spoons

on its surface a

single gold drop

holy chrism oil

watching the shape

of its motion for signs

of insidious evil eye

known in my clan

as malocchio

whether by doom or

design may have

glanced at me

staining my inchoate

soul with misfortune

she softly incants

that most magical

ancient arrangement

of words whose

prescription dispels

the dread curse

then reciting our

prayers in a song of

duet grandma lays

devout thumbs to my

brow makes the ritual

sign of the cross

and I know in my heart

I am once again safe

and re-purified

(This comes from my last lingering memory of my maternal grandmother, Maria Gaetana Scarlatelli DeTore, who passed when I was but a lad of six years old. She was a saintly sweet bulldog, steeped in her Roman Catholic faith and the cultural traditions and superstitions of her native Italian village. A most beloved and relentless guardian of the souls of her very large brood of children and grandchildren.)