Ode to Freeze Spell
1 Minute Read Time
My grandmother at first refused, but the truth slipped
through like sun breaking a pond’s icy face—
there was a girl wearing a pearl gown who bridge-bent,
a snowdrop on the church steps, and said Erzulie stepped inside.
Wreathed in Communion buds, the girl almost drowned
kissing her reflection in an alabaster baptismal font.
The goddess shivers into a bride who plucks the veil
from her hair and leaps out the door, climbs
a hibiscus tree and collects bouquets for other women.
Erzulie brings them to their knees at the stove
eating wild boar, honey-fried fruit, sweet plantain.
Some are married to ruby-eyed men,
who dress blue-starched and briefcased, lead meetings,
plow rice fields, or check vitals until they return home.
The husbands blame the amber glint of rum and their fathers
who taught love is held in a flying fist. Some in my family
whisper my great-grandmother was a black widow
who poisoned her two husbands and draped them in silk.
What a quiet revenge—once Erzulie visits, wives write
their names on paper slips cut and buried in the freezer.
Drinking ginger tea, they wait and wait until
their husbands turn frostbitten and blue.
Read more from Issue 23.1.
