The Slave Man's Magic
by Rachel Swirsky
Best thing to do when God won't listen and the devil don't care, go down to the conjure woman. Bring what you can. Take her the shoat you killed on your last free Sunday. Take her a cornbread crust you filched out of the kitchen. Take her the last of your dried fish ration. If you can't stand to starve a day or two, you don't need the magic bad enough.
If you've got nothing else, bring her a scrap of soul, a slice of heart, a wing of desire. But be sure to bring the best you've got.
Don't go idly. There are as many foolish wishes as there are tobacco leaves, and they all end the same: chewed up and spit out. The young man who went asking for a certain girl to lend him her heart, he got his wish until the day he noticed a yellow cast to his baby's skin and bashed in the master's face. He was hanged for his trouble. And the old man who went to make sure his wife stayed loyal, he got his wish until they sold his woman off to Kentucky. Love is serious business, but goopher is grave.
Treat the conjure woman right, pay her fair, and ask her for what you can't do without. Carry home a cure for your wife's ailing heart after your children are gone to auction. Ask for a salve to make the blows on your back fall soft as water on a rock. Beg for a pair of wings to carry you away, like the old Africans who flew from this place but couldn't take our lost generations with them. Go to the conjure woman for help with the load you can't bear. A man has to do something.
Do everything right, but don't expect a happy ending. A potion may mend a heart, but new seams can be ripped out again. Water wears down a rock. And the wings to carry you out of this place are the wings of Jesus.
Go to the conjure woman for help with the load you can't bear. A man has to do something. But until freedom comes, his back will break anyway, sooner or later.