Positive Cast of Mind

Let's workshop this poem about a faith healer's questionable yet magnetic story arc (from conscious charlatanism to self-hypnotized conviction in his own mystical powers)

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Positive Cast of Mind 

The faith healer set out for fraud at first—
retribution, most likely, for a life marred 
by cruelties from the nest: the wincing bite
of a father’s razor strop, the wet thwack
of spitballs (teachers well aware) reddening
his hulking asymmetry. But the swelling

chorus of teary-eyed placebos brewed 
its curious alchemy. So many praised 
his mystical potency—a praising often
over the top, as if born of desperation 
to smother any inner twinge of revulsion 
(for their ridiculous gullibility) or any doubt

managing to pierce the morphine fog
of hope-roused (hope-rousing) endorphins.
How could he resist sipping—guzzling—
the antidote to his own stewing revulsion:
the conviction that his fingers really do
channel forth some sort of Jesus juice;

the conviction that could only amplify
his contagious charisma? Carried
into more hearts on his own sugar-pill
wake, he continues palming chicken livers
and listening through a covert earpiece
to plants in the crowd and to ushers

prepped to seat able-bodied attendees
in wheelchairs. And his healing hands
have only gotten more handsy, dipping 
lower—recklessly lower—in age right 
in front of everyone (as if their virgins
were tacit tributes: faith proven in taboo).

None of that rattles the conviction. 
The hope of too many souls hangs
on him, so he tells himself—hangs 
on him not having (not seeming to have)
the off days everyone, even the greats,
are bound to have now and then.

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