M.

Blood Magic

Cailleach 2In the wake of receiving new eyes—
ball and white, red and black—
my intellectually adoptive grandmother
has departed her own gnarled hand,
likely moved on by neglect.

In her place the Scottish hag
Cailleach of my blood,
the same gnarled hand but missing
ring and pinky.

A red leather bracelet
sewn to my wrist—involuntary surgery—
whispers sanguinely to the half
of my innards that still
belong to the ragged dead hung on
my right ankle as I exited the womb.

-M.

Published by M.

I have been a professional tarot reader for 13 lucky years. My esthetic is what I call the “Universal Wink”. If Life itself doesn’t take itself too seriously, why should we? Your future matters, but future matters need not be so dire, as the dirty dust of destruction often spawns the dustiest, dirtiest jokes. Even when the joke’s on us, it’s up to us to choose how we take it. Do we weep when the Ten of Swords leaves us bleeding at the bottom of the Steps of Fate, or do we giggle as shock sets in, mutter to ourselves, “damn—that sure hurt more than it tickled,” and try not to drive the blades in deeper as we pick them out of our backs, one by one, before getting up and ascending the Steps again? I choose the latter, and so should you.
 When not romancing the cartomancy,, I'm an essayist and poet. My work has been rejected by some of the finest journals in America. Fortunately, it also gets accepted from time to time and has appeared in equally fine journals such as Word Riot, Inlandia, Brew City Magazine, and SageWoman, among others.. In 2002, I won the Academy of American Poets Prize for Vanderbilt University.
 For no good reason, I possess an unnecessarily dark humor which is why being third generation California Inland Empirian delights me so. My gods are weird. I once won $350 for writing a smartassed essay on “why the wise use of water is important in my daily life”. I am undoubtedly the Greek god Hermes’ special snowflake. I’m pretty sure I got into college via a series of fortuitous clerical errors.
 When I had to grow up and get a real job, I decided against it and stayed a writer and tarot reader. I have worked many odd—and I mean odd—jobs to support my habit: PR writer for country music hopefuls, resume massager, WalMart fitting room attendant and switchboard operator, and telephone psychic, just to name a few.
 I am also albino. That's why my psychic gifts are so strong. I traded in my pigment for magical foresight, because that's how it works. It gets all technical. Trust me. That's totally how it works.

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