Sting of Death
By Nikki Jackson
Together, this poem combines academic research on Hoodoo with information from personal interviews to depict how Conjure existed within my family in recent generations. Emphasis was placed on authenticity such that those interviewed - Opal Fulwood, Kim Jackson, Gregory Reynolds, and Horace Reynolds, Jr. - and the family members portrayed would be reflected truthfully. As seen in academia and daily Black life, Hoodoo is our past and lives on in the present.

Cooks know how to prepare
For life or death
Often popping up among tall weeds
Where the trained land reminds itself of its indigenous nature
Polk salad grows
The cook’s grandchild shies away when he hears that its raw form can kill
And gets stuck where they harvested it wondering about that one “useless” letter
The cook’s matriarchs taught her how the plant, cooked twice,
Purges parasites
Right now, her husband could put that to use
Live things inside him had been planted when his sons didn’t work like he did
And separating himself from their no-countness was worth the foreign bodies inside his own
The cook knew he needed her
He was familiar with being surrounded by women since being raised by his great-grandmother
Certain old ways had faded out since white men started caring that negroes had children out of 
wedlock
Old Lady Betsy was meant to enjoy her time until the children called on her from the other side
But her seasoned hands had changed diapers instead
The wriggling and crawling mounted when that taste of mother’s abandonment rose
But somehow his running around at night was worth risking the cook’s medicine meeting his 
mouth unrefined
Even the backwardness of an abandoned husband leaving his children didn’t tempt her to get 
impatient with the pot
His questions on its status got repetitive
His silence begged why the generations between the Old Lady and him had never appeared
His mistaken recall of the family house’s layout recurred
And his name dried up the mouths of the sons who didn’t know he still loved them
Finally, it was time to drain and re-cook
Prayers for the wives’ tales to prove healing filled the stale pharmacy
As the daughters changed one too many bedpans
The day after he miraculously determined to tune into this life and his body enough to make it to 
the bathroom
The roots were ready
The cook let the more dangerous of the spirits drip out of the pot licker before she dressed it with 
his favorite Texas Pete
With her now in the room, his body shook and a daughter encouraged him to go home
Ruth Cook stood in silence
And felt the two containers grow lukewarm.

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