The Part-Time Healer
by Ariel Saramandi

Three tablespoons of salt, one lemon, three needles piqué in lemon, cross-form. Add one coconut only if client pay double normal price. Pique finger and decorate with blood (premium) if client pay three times + +

Abhishek followed the “Purifying” recipe entry in his book with “Eternal Rules for Good Healing Practices”, which were...
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                     Flashlights
              Ghost stories
        Stolen Stoli from Dad’s curio

The Rain Maker hears their cries long before she comes sweeping in to pass judgement. She hears it in the deafening stillness of the water. The creatures within lay in wait of her presence, listening in painful silence for her return, praying for a miracle as the muddy depths suck them in and swallow them whole.

in the silent garden of a palace
you praised its     golden cage
deaf to her morning songs
you seize    seeing neither her orange
& blue bristle     nor her dark beak

The rich have funny Christmases. They put giant fake plastic evergreen wreaths on all the brick columns making up the fences outside their immense homes. They have to know the poor can't see the thick steel wires making up the main body and will get all scratched up when they run in and swipe one drunk on vodka from $10 plastic half-gallons still coherent enough to realize it would take longer for the cops to show up even there than to get out and back into anonymity.

“Sippy Cup”
We need force
to open a tin,

tear a packet,
switch on nostrils.

You breathe
the beginning

of desire
in plantation mint.