Legends of the Women of Duvergé

My great grandmother Tata

is not remembered for her kindness
just for the way she left
knives in legs of men
who owed her
money.

The men in my family never live long
enough to be remembered
as anything other than
victims.

It is said the women of Duvergé are brujas
who bury their husbands
in the ashes of their
alchemy.

That the women of my family
cast spells in silence
as they serenade their children`s spirits
asleep.

My eyes are as dirty as the water,
sit on the edge of a sea
of brown that are
my ancestors
bodies.

Are muddled in centuries
of cries that can conjure a
curse.

By Michelle Garcia Fresco

Michelle Garcia Fresco is an Afro-Latinx poet and Spoken Word artist based in Boston. She is currently a Senior at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, Double majoring in Creative Writing and Sociology. Believing in the power of poetry as a medium for social justice. Garcia`s writing is often inspired by the women in her family, social and racial injustices in America, coping with loss and mental health, as well as her Dominican roots.