For sleeping: Don’t fall asleep with your knees up
or you’ll invite a ghost to mount you.
For ghosts: Never ask them what they want. That’s
some American shit.
For ghosts that won’t leave: Use frankincense.
Conduct a rosary circle. Lead them to a tree that guards gold.
For nightmares: Upon waking speak your dreams into the air—
the witnessing daylight will prevent them from coming true.
For nightmares in which teeth shatter like crashing dinner plates:
Someone you love has died. The teeth always know.
For menstrual periods: Don’t touch any child not your own
and don’t wash your hair until you’ve bled for five days.
For the evil eye: Cross yourself and stay away from folks
who would give a compliment but not follow it with a blessing.
For reading or eating: Don’t do both at the same time.
For kitchens: Open an oven or open a refrigerator but heat and cold air
should never mix in the same body.
For men: Feed them well and feed them often, the fatter the man
the more likely he’s too heavy to leave.
For cheating: Watch out if you skip a hoop while fastening your belt—
one time too many means someone else has been minding your man.
For superstitions: Treat them all like salt, scatter them before you leave
let them cling to the soles of your feet.
(348 words)
The superstitions in this poem are actually very interesting. I especially like the second one which is about ghosts, “Never ask them what they want. That’s some American shit.” I find it to be quite amusing, especially since I myself am an American. Ghosts feel like they’re a lot more… acceptable for a Dominican? That they aren’t always just evil, that they’re just apart of life? She talks about ghosts 3 times, and 1 of the 3 times is even close to horror (a ghosts mounts you depending on how you sleep). They almost don’t feel as solid. And then the 2 about nightmares, both are rather interesting, though, I don’t completely understand the 2nd one. Is it trying to say that your teeth will know the truth, that you have to do a fortune telling using the teeth of animals or something? Though, the 1st one is really interesting to me because it feels like it could hold actual bases in reality. Saying your nightmares out loud in the daylight may help you not be as scared of them and thus not have the nightmare as often. Then there’s the one about periods, I don’t get that superstition at all. You can’t wash your hair or touch kids? What? Like, the hair thing especially confuses me, but I can’t exactly ask about it. Moving on to the Evil Eye, what is that? Due to my sullen lack of knowledge, I can’t exactly react to that one. Then the kitchens, not mixing hot and cold air in the body, it’s actually really interesting because I think there were actual studies about how one could feel ill after eating something that is both cold and hot. The whole men and cheating ones though… well, I don’t really think the cheating one holds any weight and the men one just kinda upsets me because that type of attitude can lead to obesity which can lead to death, yay! And then the superstition about superstitions just makes me chuckles a bit, like, the mere idea of it is kinda funny, right?
Muffin; The Blog 