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Conjure

There is voodoo here, deep down, hidden in a place pitch and pulsing, gris-gris so dark you can't see the purple red stitching, so hot and humid, I dare you try to move, to breathe. It is summer in this place, tropically inclined, with a black beating sun.

My women are calling, you hear? Dark eyes and white teeth clicking, pink tongues dart and stir words you've never heard. Fingers tapping 'gainst your temples, nails leave soft crescent moons about your brow.

My women are crying, not sweet pretty proper. My women live gutterally in the growl of the surf, the curve of the dunes, the drag of nettles, the needful gnashing pull of tides. My women are calling you in with grit and smoke, bone and blood, moonlight and teeth and coals and drumming and feet pounding upon your body buried, and you are buried in the rhythms and the ache and the burning, the songs lapping voices behind my navel, rippling to unknown fathoms, ripping out my own voice to join the chant.

You think to dig yourself deeper Ð you will never find the end of me. This is my place, these my women, swirling shadow pictures, salty smells that cannot be grasped, caught, netted, or tied. This tide has no slack — you will never find the end of me. Lose yourself in this sea. The undertow will swallow you whole. Again. And. Again.


Madeline Roux