~
Believe in magic, they say
for Heather & Anna
But I’m guessing what
they mean is to believe
in the pastel goodness
of unicorns and fairies
and leprechauns who leave
the necessary gold to cure
your financial woes
just before you’ve lost all hope.
Or if I believed hard enough,
I could imagine this
“Grow a Doctor” toy into reality
where it would grow
to the boasted 600 times
its size and let me rant endlessly
about my symptoms.
And he would be a real, single
doctor grown just in time
to by my date for the big event
like every Hallmark movie
I’ve ever secretly loved.
But I’ve never believed
in any of this lightness.
It always seemed too obvious
or unreal, the kind of luck
or purity not meant
for people like me.
The only magic I believe in
is always murky and heavy—
spells cast in the cover
of night, praying to dark gods.
Sacrifices and bargains
made with women in shrouds
deep in the woods, chanting
in circles of discarded bones.
And this is why, when my mother
was dying, I sent Heather to collect
items for a healing spell a friend
bought me in New Orleans.
She ran around town
and gathered the items:
Leaves of tea
Flowers of lavender
Ginger and salt
Clove and camphor
She wrapped them in a scrap
of white velvet, tied it
shut with royal blue thread,
then left it on the porch.
And when we returned
from the hospital, it was waiting,
A small bundle of hope
born out of some tourist trap
in a sweaty corner of Bourbon Street.
But what did it matter where
it came from if we believed?
What did we care that it wouldn’t work
as long as it meant we could say
that we’d tried absolutely everything.
~
Bree A. Rolfe lives in Austin, TX, where she teaches writing and literature to mostly reluctant, but always lovable, teenagers. She’s originally from Boston, Massachusetts, where she worked as a music journalist for 10 years before dedicating her life to poetry and teaching. Her work has appeared in Saul Williams’s poetry anthology, Chorus: A Literary Mixtape, the Redpaint Hill Anthology, Mother is a Verb, and 5AM Magazine. She holds an MFA from the Writing Seminars at Bennington College. Her first chapbook, Who’s Going to Love the Dying Girl, is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press in September of 2021. http://breerolfe.com/