Seven Silver Curses      My little sister had a glass of wine   No doubt a glass of wine too many   "I bet he's out right now with his Nazi whore   That's right, I said it, that's what she is, and when he   Finally saunters back at three or four,   Don't let him in, put the chain on the door."   But of course I'd let him in, the jerk.      Now my silly little sister went to some vlachos coffee-grind reader   Ad had a gypsy glint in her eye when she'd smirk   "Since that's how you feel, I know what to do   Make sure she gets fixed before she takes him from you."      It's a hot August night and my sister and I are creeping down south Halsted   Towards a storefront past a storefront stoop and a moon   And a star and a placard that says Madame Maria's.      "Tell me your troubles,   But five dollars first."   That's what she said   And of course, I thought the worst      Charlatan, phony   Fraud gypsy bitch whose Greek was bad and English was worse   I held tight to my purse      My sister did the talking and I looked down   And tapped my foot and sort of twisted on one heel.      Madame pointed to corner   And twisted her shawl,   Uncovered a dusty old crystal ball      I peered in despite myself      Somewhere on some love seat, my husband was there   Paying court to his mistress and stroking her hair   I saw it for myself   "I can't believe it!" I cried   Madame Maria said, "Well, I had a notion   So before you came in, I prepared half a potion      Now you must do the other half   I wrote you a list   You must get seven part-silver curses made special out of bullet bits by some Pollock I know in Evergreen Park   And dip them in the potion and drop them in Buckingham Fountain at 3:13 on Friday morning   And then she'll be gone, you'll be rid of her!"      Quick, for the potion, we have to get three dozen crabapples that fell off a raggedy old tree right in the southwestern corner of Columbus Park!   Faster, we have to go up to Caputo's Produce and Fruit Market on Harlem and get the garden snake that lives in the banana bin!   Hurry, we have to get the mercury out of the old thermometer they have through the north-facing doors   To the left by the shoe-shine boys in the lobby of the Monadnock building!   And don't be late, for you must get the silver out of the teeth of one George Karmalitis   Who as we speak lies dead under a dirty wool blanket in the basement of the morgue of Laretto hospital   The silver teeth of a man killed by a jealous wife!      I wasn't always an old maid   I didn't always walk down the street   And have the children yell at me Spinny Spinny the Spinster   And try to knock the hat off my head   I had a fiancee, or he led me to believe I'd soon be his fiancee   And I did believe him, as I had every right to   And I'd put on my best dress and we'd go dance at all the dances      And I'd never let the boys from the barracks cut in   They'd come out of Great Lakes, usually straight off the farm anyway   And I'd never really let any of the country club beaus get a chance   Those cream-colored summer suits were never cut to my taste anyhow   And those Hyde Park fraternity fellas were out as a matter of course   I don't enjoy a man in red, so certainly not maroon, that's for sure      I only had eyes for my guy, see   But one night he had said he wouldn't be able to take me   As he hurt his shoulder and had his arm in a sling   But I went anyway and saw him with another woman   And she was wearing his ring      The silver still smelled and smelted down quick into the copper or lead or whatever else it was   And when the metal was still soft and hot you'd engrave the curse into it with a stylus from an old whale bone   I thought for a second of what I might write   Something a little different, but with the correct sort of spite   One of them asked panayia mou to make that blonde's hair fall straight out   The potion was ready back at my apartment   And my sister and I mumbled and crossed ourselves when we dropped the curses in   And I thought of my husband   My husband and her   And I thought of me and him, of what we were   I thought of our wedding day      And I was happy, very simply happy   Do you hear it   A modest young woman's simple contentment   It's probably a sunny day, and I think it was   The birds were chirping   And I felt like I was dancing on air   But not very far off the ground   I wonder if I knew even then that things wouldn't always be perfect   That one day he'd seek solace in the arms of another woman   And that to win him back, to win him back, I'd have to do this      3:11!, 3:12!, 3:13!   On a hot August night everyone is asleep   But the crows were watching, witching and my temple was twitching   Twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch   Fountain, sweet fountain   Fountain, sweet fountain   Let your water react and turn the curses to fact and come true   Fountain, sweet fountain   Fountain, sweet fountain   Let your water react and turn the curses to fact and come true   And they do      The instant we dropped them in, our hearts started to race   And a wind came up off the lake; make no mistake, we felt something released out into the city   And I swore   And I swooned   As I swept back somehow to Austin, I don't remember how   Scared of what I had wrought   But terrified, I didn't get what I had sought      Oh Jimmy, where you been so long   Oh Jimmy, where you been so long   Oh Jimmy, where you been so long      Oh Jimmy, where you been so long   Oh Jimmy, where you been so long   Oh Jimmy, where you been so long      And as the clock struck eight the next morning   My husband was next to me with a smile on his face   And I looked, no blond hairs on his pajamas   And it was as if I had been awakened from a bad dream