Dance for Mama Legba
after Komunyakaa

                    I

This ain't the old religion.
No sir, no ma'am, we claim
the names and sayings as our own,
but we—we are different
from you. Our voodoo
is not the voodoo of the farm doctor,
our voodoo is not
the voodoo of the revolution,
our voodoo is our life and our breath and our work
but we do not wear it
like a patchwork shirt,
we do not gaze upon it
like a stone and brass icon.

It is in us. It moves
from spinal fluid to kidneys,
blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile.
It makes short work
of what we eat and causes what we wear
to shine like the gilt
wooden crown on the head of Erzuli.
Our bodies radiate.

This ain't the old religion.
We have turned as one
and fed the voodoo into us,
baked in bread, simmered in stew.
We breathe it in the smoke
from the fires on which we dance.

They come and take us,
these gods. They come to us
and through us
they breathe and eat and laugh and screw and sweat
and dance, dance all night
if the mood strokes,
leaving us sore and satisfied in the morning.

This ain't the old religion.
We have not forgotten the wars
but we let them pass over and through us.
The spirits that walk beside us
and counsel us through our days
are calmer now. They can look at us
and smile and say, “Enjoy.”

                    II
(a sonnet for Baron Samedi, song in the tradition of Corbiére's corpse poems)

You have reaped the wind
and called the ravens to your hand.
We can call your name
and feast on the strength of your gaze.

You can come and drink
at our table, ever invited.
We do not fear you.

Look at the morning.
The sun calls the blood of the sky
to the clouds' faces.

You are smiling, there,
in the fields of coffee, tilling.
We do not fear you,
but feast on the strength of your gaze.

                     III

What is this thing called pain?
We are born, and we die.
Between, things happen.
We can hold ants
on our fingers and lick the crusts
of limestone icicles,
we can walk through fires and pierce our ears
and put flowers behind girls' ears.
We can let the gods take us
and use us.
These things happen
and we register, move on.

What is this thing called pain?
A splinter worked under the skin
of the stomach, reddening and infecting?
Is it the heartsickness
after too much rum and gumbo
imported from New Orleans,
the burning in your chest
and groin?

The gods do not define pain,
they define life and absence of life.

                  IV

Last night, I had a dream
that a small boy asked me
to drink gooseberry tea with him.
I did, and walked away.

Today, this did not happen.
Is that not silence?

I sit and watch
the sun disappear
as the bonfires are built on the beach
below me.

The builders will play music
from cheap tape players
and dance,
and the gods will come

as they always do.




Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry on unceded Mingo land (Akron, OH). He published his first poem in a non-vanity/non-school publication in November 1988, and it's been all downhill since. Recent/upcoming appearances in Cacti Fur, Password, and The Stray Branch, among others.