Black Magic Brother

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Addiction casts a spell. It can bewitch and beguile and create an illusory world within a world. It is a sort of theatre with a stage, performer and involuntary audience. For the closest of audience -- friends and family -- denial and hope prolong the painful drama. In "Black Magic Brother", Natalie Diaz describes the behavior of an addict and its effect in a family as a kind of sorcery. The poem comes from her 2012 collection, When My Brother Was an Aztec.

2 Jan English South Africa Arts · Society & Culture Hailey Gaunt

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