This is very much of a first draft. The last stanza has given me a lot of trouble.

SUPERSTITIONS
Across my godless sky a magpie skids,
a barcode flash, trailing misfortune.
I paint a cross onto the air.
And then that night it’s the full moon
bagged in clouds swollen with snow.
I must drop three wishes into her milk-heart
before the clouds hustle her away.
In a last heartbeat of light, I invest a trio
of dreams. But silently, as if to confound
negotiation, snow fills the bowl
of the universe, the sky falls to meet
the rising earth and the seams are drawn.
White darkness, a breast of feathers. Without
my lodestars, compass free, I drown
beyond hope, beyond despair.
9:59:06 PM
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