The JuJu Man

by Theresa C. Gaynord

First clocks tick among the whitest

wheat, longing for the night where

glow-worms spark a silken string of

stars as moonbeams bend their arc,

cold as stone, away from gurgling

waters and goblin's cries.

A dying bat flaps its wings for the

last time before it comes to rest on

the breast of hardened soil, modest in

the fallen dew, dwindled to swift decay

with sunken eyes and fading mouth; absent

now from the sweet wine of red grapes,

sucked into empty rinds. The soul splits

into a somber ghost in sleep, sweet poison

to the rusty hands of time that tremble in

the shadows with a faint fluttering of cunning

seduction. Unseen from his home in the wood,

the juju man weaves his corn figure,

avenging a wrong; its small face buoyant, as if

commiserating the binding. And in the nearby

Creek it’s thrown, deep into the peering darkness,

still to dreams never spoken, still to a silence

unbroken, obedient to the juju man's spell of