Jesse Millner

Aquelarre

In medieval times, Mojacar was known
as a gathering place for witches,
and I have seen the way the wind
rushes down alleys as though, it, too, is alive 

as it blows candy wrappers into the bar
where a bearded man with bloodshot eyes
sips a beer and corners white beans with his fork.
I order a Coca Cola Light, which costs
more than a beer and includes no tapas,
only a breath of cigarette
smoke from the beer drinking man.

I sit outside with my soda and watch the wind
bend everything before it: flowers,
trees, the smaller tourists,
and I look closely amid the white
washed buildings for signs of darker sorcerers,
and I listen for incantations
that might bring an evil eye
or paralyze my right hand.

I hear only Spanish voices and the wind,

feel only the sun warming my bare arms.
The only magic in the pueblo
today is the spring light, that beautiful light,
which I take into my body until
I am full and shining inside out
like the fire behind the lemon blossom
or the fire beneath the poppy’s red petals,
or the fire behind the sparrow’s eyes,
or the fire from which the world was born.