Excerpts from Tyriek White’s We Are a Haunting

Chapter 5, “Altars,” pp 66-67

The apartment was painted the bright skin of a tangerine, full of pots of green stalks and dusty appliances and electronics. I let Steph do whatever she needed to. I breathed the sage she burned, the ends of the ash-colored stalks turning to smoke. I sat at the altar, photos of a young Rosa atop an antique chest alongside paintings of saints, Mary and Philomena. The saints had use in all kinds of conjuring and fortification. A framed Saint Peter without a key was hung to bring about success. Joseph with baby Jesus in his arms was hung up when one needed work. There was a shelf below Mary and Philomena that was lined with mason jars full of roots, seeds, dirt, pastes, roasted corn with palm oil, yam powder for protection.

“Can you tell me how she crossed over? As you remember it,” I asked her. It made them easier to retrieve, if someone were still trapped in an in-between place, lost and wandering. Everyone in the neighborhood wanted to sit down with me. They called, asked my mother on the street when she went to the grocery for greens and freshly cut meat. She told them not to believe everything they heard, respectfully. But the ones who knew, really knew, came to me. They wanted to say goodbye, or ask one last question.