Urban Brujeria
She didn’t quite walk over the cracked cement, broken glass, and used condoms. She floated from Saint Nicholas to Madison Avenue. East Side, West Side, Uptown, Downtown, with feet never touching the ground round town, ho town, sundown, touchdown La bruja was visible. Praying for the invisible to strut out of Sing Sing, march out of Attica, and float out Fishkill. She was eating mangu in the morning with Malcolm X, chewing on cigars guerilla style with Che Guevara for lunchtime, and sipping on champagne with Nelson Mandela for dinner. She did not have to rub her temples, eat fire ants, ring alarms, burn sage, or wear a fancy robe. Magic was part of her destination, a language that required no translation, her translucent borders, her social security number, her place of birth and her time of death. Santeria wrapped her up as a baby like a satin blanket, got the red out of her eyes like Visine,and smacked oxygen like an inhaler when she lacked breath: a full blown asthmatic. Respira Respira It was automatic like suffering is to the mother of a Singapore whore, Like the stench of bronzed piss is to a subway rider. She was born to see these things, born to tell time during New York City summer blackouts, to pick up direction from a passing scent, and read peoples palms, coffee stains, and intentions. She couldn’t work miracles but miracles worked with her, she negotiated with dope fiends that were shooting up on the clouds, talked the suicidal husbands off the George Washington Bridge, and pleaded with the pretty girls to spread college dreams not their legs.
She rose up from the earth’s crust like a phoenix, caught lightning bolts from Chango like Frisbees, and swam alongside her mother Yemeya like two glow-in-the-dark mermaids.
And to experience her was to be born into her. We all fell in love.
Porque tu me hiciste brujeria
totally jonesing with her bluest light, her sweetest pineapple, and all the heaven and all the hell and all the dust that twirled inside of her.