Traffic Jam or, The Spells

Abstract

Traffic Jam or, The Spells celeste doaks (bio) Heca's first "spell" in 2090 as she drives toward America's center Approaching a clutter of cars at the intersectionmy to-do list smoke-swirls inside my head alongside the latest pop crap blaring from the radioas I start to get that feeling the droopy eyes and the thick sweat of heavy hands a calling I can't control as butterflies flutter inside ears as thoughts dull I hear her say are you surrat?as I think, what's surrat? Is this child stirring the pot already? I feel a belly-shift as the light changes from red to yellow then yellow to red again but never to greenI reach for my phone to dial a city's traffic line then, after some minutes pass I remember wakingto confusion my skin pressed against concretetrying to ask what happened with a swollen, foreign tongue surrat = confused [End Page 70] celeste doaks celeste doaks is the author of Cornrows and Cornfields and American Herstory, a 2018 Backbone Press Chapbook Award winner. She edited the Not Without Our Laughter anthology, and recently the Whitney and Brooklyn Museums have prominently featured her ekphrastic poems. A Yaddo fellow, doaks lives in Baltimore with her husband and various plants. Copyright © 2022 Celeste Doaks