Indian Fig

Una terra spinosa

Where ashen rain layers

The catci chords

Of the babbaluti and their

Vibrant, grotesque profiles provacative

With their protuding tongues

And serpentine horns

Warding off the Malocchio

Of the ever too curious stare.

Tum, tum, tum.

Scaramanzia

Barbed fingers

And dangling corna

Are our portafortuna

Here in the land where

Odysseus once passed

Strapped to a mast

To hear the wail

Of the siren song

While Scylla consumed his men.

Tum tum tum.