Featured Poem • April 2014
a recipe
Lynette Mejía
Start with herb. They expect time as they are used to withering. Crush, chew, extract the juices until they bleed, blend into intention. You may need to use teeth. Mix in mineral. Break along planes, cleave and fracture, pulverize, destroy in the service of creation. Add fire if you must. This is where the skill severs art from artifice; where thought blooms a dread flower becoming deed. Stir carefully. Simmer in the blood of an enemy. Drink, absorb, ascribe meaning to the sacrifice. Timing is everything.
Lynette Mejía writes science fiction, fantasy, and horror prose and poetry. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Goblin Fruit, Dreams & Nightmares, Strange Horizons, Ideomancer, and Star*Line. She is currently working on a master’s degree in English Literature at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette, and lives in Carencro, Louisiana, with her husband, three children, six cats, and one dog. You can find her online at www.lynettemejia.com.
She says that “‘a recipe’ was written as part of a poetry workshop I took a couple of years ago. I wanted to write a poem about a witch creating a potion, but one that considered emotion and intention as much as herbs and entrails; I guess it’s sort of a nod to Shakespeare’s weird sisters with a sprinkling of Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate.”
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