Stay away from the voodoo, love.

Resist

the swamp music
the bells on her ankles
her feathered fan

and when she sways
at the hip—

goddess of sudden changes
patroness of prostitutes
and abandoned lovers—

chanting Mambo, terrible beauty.

Say nothing

when she leans close
(cinnamon, tree bark and, faintly, smoke)
and breathes

If you have no altar,
I am your altar.

Stay away from the voodoo, love—

her drumbeats and cypress trees,
her hocus pocus
honeylocust.