Springfield Ghazal
1 Minute Read Time
My grandmother whispers the rosary, her dresser an altar
of Kleenex, perfume bottles, an empty vase. The altar
cleaned of VHS tapes where she once watched crows
and gulls cloak the sun, where Rosemary’s womb is an altar.
There is too much horror in the daytime for her sleepless
nights. Politicians say my family strangles geese on the altars
of dining room tables. In White Zombie, a plantation wedding
night is ruined by a Vodou master who poisons a bride, alters
her mind into mist. She drifts, kohl-smeared and knife
blinking. On Resurrection Day, we heap lilies on the altar.
In Sunday school, I am told the bread is flesh—once, a priest
doubted, and the wafer became a heart beating on the altar.
After the earthquake, steeples were swallowed—on Sundays, worshippers
sat on concrete ruins. My family, another sacrifice on the election’s altar.
We watch Christmas movies and she prays her eyes stay closed
for a few hours. She places her chanting tongue on the altar.
After a hymn of Hail Marys she lists her lineage, says Von,
each night I keep you in my prayers, the names offerings for the altar.
Read more from Issue 23.1.
