Nov. 27, 2022
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White Caravan
By Jessica Reidy
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White Caravan
a death fugue in my mother’s voice
By Jessica Reidy
My white caravan clomps
through the desert, color-scorched, ecstatic.
The wagon burns because I’m hot shit.
My ancestors are diasporic, skull-polished,
hard-knocking. I’ll come to them
around the fire, my red horse waiting.
I had nightmares of molars
rolling over floor boards
freed from their skeleton shelves,
leaping like lentils in a rattle.
German-Gypsy, a handful of teeth.
I used to be a beauty queen.
Bitch, call me Romani.
Hunger was unkind to me:
a family legacy. Every organ is hardening.
Such a rare disease.
Once, my daughter spread my mother’s playing cards
across a table, red and black winking what I already knew,
to cover the mirrors very soon.
“Mama, do you have anything to ask the cards?”
“Yeah, what the fuck?”
I never told fortunes like her, or my mother.
Damnit, I was an aerobics instructor,
horse trainer, dog groomer, I kept accounts.
I was a shop clerk, L’eggs sales girl, body builder.
Perfect score GED when I was 30.
I could have kept going. Something stopped me.
My skin thickened over
my little wagon’s architecture,
but notice how a scorpion molts,
violently leaving itself undone.
I open the caravan door, blessed above
with a horseshoe and bells. I invite
the soot of evening to cover throw pillows
and scar tissue, to smother me good
like a measured father, Devla.
My white father peddled me
while my Gypsy mother froze like a fawn
in the light of a new country, a new language.
She leaned into horror, weaned on the Nazi regime,
fresh off the boat into the arms
of her own private tyrant.
Horse-drawn teacups shudder
all porcelain and wet leaves
clattering down my calcified lungs
as I breathe and breathe.
I used to stand on my red horse’s back
as she galloped, our hair braided.
Now watch the pincers of the scorpion weave
getting closer to me—that’s a boxer I would bet on,
and who can forget the sting.
I’m looking for Death, the beautiful woman
who will stop my wagon and take me
where dunes open
to reveal a compressed gem of endings;
where sand closes over my head
as I look up at the nights’s body.
The moon is a tendon-raw joint
for me to scream at. Once, I loved her
and only spoke soft words,
Latchi, Latchi, goddess of the good.
I’m entitled to my anger, and my angels.
When scorpions crack from their backs,
rise between my busted spokes,
they are, for three days, delicate.
I have always been so delicate
and no one has treated me that way.
I am transforming: spitting up the black shell.
I am playing with my medication.
I’m bored of this business of sickening.
My mother says I was born with one foot on the other side
because I could see spirits and predict the deaths
of everyone I met. I’ve been saying
I’d like to jump in with both feet.
I’ll go out with sirens blaring
flooding the desert inside me blue and red,
my daughter and my husband
frantic, breathing me with their hands.
I’ll go out on a new moon in August
when the prayer fire burns outside
just after my daughter asks for my healing
at the edge of the woods.
Beliefs have never healed me,
and if I were to be buried, I would be buried standing.
Instead, I will burn with ungodly clacking.
When I am decanted,
I will be ash blown back into my daughter’s hair
as she prays me into her meadow grass and ocean water
with whiskey and flowers, mixed
with the old ash of my red horse,
her breath blowing hot, carrying me off,
and I will be her ancestor
working an old trade, a good job.
I feel better guiding her from here.
Jessica Reidy
Jessica Reidy (they/she) is a writer, educator, and fortune teller in their mixed Romani tradition. They write poetry, fiction, & nonfiction published in Prairie Schooner, The Kenyon Review Online, Narrative Magazine, & elsewhere. Under the name Jezmina Von Thiele, they read tarot, palms, and tea leaves online, and in-person at Deadwicks Ethereal Emporium in Portsmouth, NH. Jezmina also tells fortunes and performs with The Poetry Brothel—Boston. They are co-host of Romanistan, a podcast celebrating Romani culture, alongside co-host Paulina Verminski. They are also owner and operator of the online vintage Etsy shop, Evil Eye Edit.
You can find them on Instagram.
Note: The word Romani refers to the diasporic ethnic group originally from Northwest India around the 10th century. Romani people are more commonly known by the word ”Gypsy,” however, because that word is used as a racial slur, and its origins are as a racial slur, most Roma prefer that non-Romani people do not use the word. Roma are a marginalized ethnic group still fighting for basic human rights throughout the world.
Image description: The photo is of the author, Jessica Reidy/Jezmina Von Thiele, looking directly at the camera with a closed-lip smile. They are a mixed-Romani person who uses they/she pronouns. The author has green eyes lined with black eyeliner; light pink lipgloss, long brown hair parted somewhat in the middle; a light brown complexion; wears an elaborate orange, teal, and white necklace embellished with gold coins; and wears a green shawl with pink and red floral pattern. There is a yellow tapestry behind the author with green plant embellishments.