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^Instructions to the Patient Memye Curtis Tucker The coconut husk pierced with chicken feathers— place it high in the thatch to fend off spirits who cause pains in the side, who are not appeased by the ten dishes of rice on long poles or the pig's blood, or the nightlong banging of plates. Surprise the demons with gold tantric daggers, a crimson mask, insomniac wheels that pray Om mani padme hum in the breath of night. Carve smooth, black stones with words sacred to Bön, place them to the right of your final path to City Hospital, where doctors read the future in your blood. Offer there, to the green-robed priests and ceremonial knives, husk, mask, words. Your open heart. Literature and Medicine 8 (1989) 166 © 1989 by The Johns Hopkins University Press ...

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