a nip of salt, a red chili and some mustard

Misfortunes mushrooming
from the malevolent glares
are beliefs,
as the common water hyacinth.

Eying me
drooping in dejection,
grandma takes a nip of salt,
a red chili
and some mustard,
locks her palm,
rotates her fist over my pate thrice,
and then throws the ingredients of charm
into the embers in our hearth.
I refresh, fooling myself.

A scarecrow
hanging
in front of
building construction
is another Patriot system
against the eye-missiles.
Defense is diverse.

Evil eyes thrive
from the rhizomes of envy.
They have been
on the earth
since the inception of thought.

First appeared in The Literary Hatchet