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2026 Jean Meyer Aloe Poetry Prize

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Curanderisma

by Maya Ventura

 

— For that year, when she was 19, she was psychic. When asked what she meant by this, she gave little detail, besides that one time she predicted her aunt’s death. The absence of explanation matched with her seriousness gave her a kind of credibility. People only give explanations when they need to prove themselves. Birds don’t tell us how they fly, they just fly. And just how flight is inherent to birds, clairvoyance was inherent to her. Questioning it reflected the ignorance of the person asking questions. — It's rumored that all the women in her family were psychic. They rarely smiled in photos— it seemed like their eyebrows naturally furrowed, their lips’ downward trajectory like a flattened bell curve, and their eyes looked despondent from seeing something they didn't want to. Lighting candles and calling upon saints as if they were trusted elders. Everywhere they go they are accompanied by the dead. Speaking to them as if they are in the room. Creating artwork, ofrendas, food, music to glorify them. Casting spells and waving sage — their prayer — wearing medals to ward off bad spirits. Intimidating everyone but themselves. She told me stories of her grandma, a curandera, who raised her and healed her from fevers caused by manifestations of negative energy. Her grandma made potions out of herbs she grew in secrecy in city gardens and coveted eggs as if they were a magic wand. This is not brujeria. But for the skeptics, their ways are wicked and non-western and should be decimated, yet they survive unbothered.

 



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