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Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 4247 Registered: 11-1998 |
Honorable Mention Midnight in St. Louis #1 Jake (Jason Jones) Shadows dance to forget the light in this walled garden of dead, city of crypts, long on ovens for baking bones, short the grace to serve them. The pinch-eyed woman at the shop of spells could see I was one, a doubter, naysayer, worse— she saw in me a voodoo virgin. In my hands I hold her doubt, wrap it around my head, tie it into a Tignon, my shield from angry spirits a novice might call in error. I draw the cypher from my coat, hold it to a candle, carefully begin to chant an incantation to call the spirits, ask favors, break the sepulchral silence. Plaster peels from blood bricks, leaves gashes in skin, meat glistens, threatens to expose her tomb. I’ve come to ask a favor, Marie. "Papa Legba, Lord of Loa, call on da queen, Marie Laveau ask her to bex dis bag-o-wire dat brings dis dread fassy Jah know I-man be good." My pockets hold little to offer a queen. Smokes and rum come hard, beads and silver harder. I choose a penny's sheen, my gift to the dead. "Gris-gris work for me bring me luck or let me be." I drop my mambo gift, make my ticks, X X X, and knock on each to seal the wish. Rap! Rap! Rap! Comes back. My body shakes, dances around ritual fires, falls to holy ground. Maybe the dead prefer rum. I am her voodoo doll. |
