There's a section in my book Looking for Holes in the Ceiling
called "Sympathetic Magic."
And I'll just read a couple of poems from that.
Sympathetic magic is essentially something like voodoo
but it's often benign.
It has not carried with it the negative connotations always
that voodoo does.
That is you might have an object of someone's and you
might believe by rubbing it or doing something
to it you might affect some kind of change in that person.
And the 10 poems in the sympathetic magic section
deal with that concept in various ways.
I'll read two of them.
First is called "Lovers."
"To keep the one you want, dig up a footprint of hers
and put it in a flower pot.
Then plant a marigold, the flower that doesn't fade,
and love her.
If she's distant now, it's for a reason beyond control.
So don't tamper with the impressions left by her body
when for the last time she leaves your bed.
Just smooth them out and forget her.
Who is not vulnerable to a stronger magic the broken glass,
the bullets in a yawn, the terrible power of the one less
in love?"