When I read about Sylvia's bizarre death, I was sick to my stomach. I'd not intended any major malice toward her after I drowned the spider or was it the ant? My five ceremonies were blending together like a bad watercolor. The voodoo doll set afire, the black candle, the cemetery walk. Each ritual had been enacted at a specific time on a certain day in accordance with obeah. "But not to induce death." I screamed. I only meant to slow down the competition, "the pop five." Defer them all from another book contract, a grant, a book show appearance. I was filled with guilt although I knew Sylvia's untimely demise had to be just a freakish accident. However, like a sad robot,I automatically drifted toward the bookshelf of spurious veneration. I retrieved Sylvia's collection titled Isis Bones and opened to the title poem.