Nazar

This sprung into mind completely unbidden after reading Donna‘s prompt to write something with “blue”, “breathing”, and “snow’ in it. The 125th Street poem actually has breathing and snow already, but as soon as I thought “blue”, and turned a couple ideas over in my head, this one came out of nowhere. If you walk down St. Mark’s Place (which was another title I considered for this) there are all kinds of tchotchke shops selling things like this. I’ve always loved the nazar, though, with its blue ward against the evil eye. Need to get the chain fixed on the one from Greece that I used to wear every day; I’ve felt a little bit topsy-turvy since it broke.

Nazar

For sale–
bottom-of-the-sea-blue glass oculus
blinking its pale iris and hollowed-out pupil,
dangled from a fake gold chain. The hawker
shivers and pulls at his gloves and says
ten dollar while the pigeons pretend
to be doves, and
I think– there are so few things
that don’t know what it’s like to go blind.
So much misery to tell. Still, the pendants
wink slyly in the steam breathing from the grate,
whisper windowsill music and Westminster
chime and careful,
careful what you wish for. But if not– then–
the hawker chews tobacco, sheds one tear
into a paper bag. Fixed to my window,
it watches, and it hangs with friendly weight,
like February sun, like an old drowned star
promising snow.