Superstition

(For Sunday Scribblings)

The lines between superstition,
myth and religion have always blurred into one another for me. Their literal meanings don’t hold the magic; I find the magic in what their symbols and language conjure up. It’s why I collect tarot cards – not to foretell the future, but to use my reactions to their images as a way to dig up what is going on beneath my surface. It’s like the way we can discover the multiple layers of meaning in a poem by paying close attention to its language. But it’s not the cards I want to write about. New Orleans has always been the most delicious concoction of superstition, myth and religion. A place that, even when I didn’t ask, has pressed her breath close to my ear and murmured her offerings. Sometimes I was thrilled with her gifts; other times it took me a while to warm up to them. She’s not always easy to fathom. Here’s a piece for her:

A moon hangs low and yellow while the bayou sits hourless. The white orchid tree offers up new blossoms to the night, one red drop pauses at the edge of a petal. A Screech owl’s stunned eyes search for its hunger. I sit behind the dragging branches of a Cypress, the echo of the city in my eyes and the heat over my mouth like a heavy hand. The Gris-Gris bag hangs damp between my breasts. Everything is waiting.