Mojito Conjuring
When the bruja in the red dress
sends me out this time,
it is for the taste of
sour oranges and garlic.
Once, when I plied her
with a cigar called Hoyo de Montyerrey,
she coiled the smoke,
said that I was still feral and untamed,
sent me out for sugar so that
I could learn my true name.
Scythe-swinging, field-slave-singing,
I could not return to her coven of one
until I had learned that my “Suarez”
meant that I was the son of sugar itself –
the child of wild ingenious devouring
the rows of cane like a dragon.
Now, red-dress bruja breathes out
clouds of tobacco *****,
turns the cigar round and round,
tells me to gather garlic and aurantium oranges
so that the sour and the sucre may jibe
together in me,
and leave me properly christened
for when it is time for me to work,
time for me to sweat,
time for me to sing.