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The Magic Hand

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For the old whore in Cuba, Alabama who once gave me a dollar without asking why.

He was forced to eat a star, although all he wanted was bread.  All he wanted was to be normal, but he was pre-determined by the Butcher Shop to have his limbs chopped off for mystical purposes he didn’t understand and didn’t want to understand—the Village Priests apparently saw something sacred in deforming him, all the old gods were now held suspect, and in the air an incessant storm was brewing—they said to him, We will feed you and give you a name—You are to speak without imperfection—but as in all matters of society, the village soon became bored of their sacred amputee and starved him to death with moon dust and with solar interstices in his belly.  

  • Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Louis Bourgeois is primarily a poet who has also published translations, fiction, memoirs and interviews in more than two hundred magazines and journals in North America, Europe and Asia. He holds a BA in English from Louisiana State University and was the first graduate of the University of Mississippi's MFA program in Creative Writing. He is the Executive Director of VOX Press as well as the Program Director for the Mississippi Prison Writes Initiative.