I was in the Bronx sacrificing doves Baba would swiftly rip their heads off Like Challah bread on Yom Kippur By the mural of Fat Joe and Big Pun Where I came to pay blood in exchange for safety His safety, my legendary brother, Elegua All the way from Washington Heights Right off the Deegan He found me As if the 160,000 miles of streets never distanced us I still don't know how but he found me He hurried me inside his Range Rover, already high Off the nitrous oxide pumping out the speakers Listen, he said. It dropped today He needed to be the one to deliver it to me Needed to bear Witness To be church for my monosyllabic prayer: Nas This is how he loves, my legendary brother, Elegua His search for me rippled the gray out the block Out the clouds, out the clock. His ultraviolet light Resurrected my childhood suicides that I'd done to Subside. Giddy little dead girls ascended out the Dungeons of my mouth and joined us I rolled his blunt. He never let me smoke For your own good He'd turn the speakers up, paused, rewind lines We zoned out. Listened through sunset and nightfall To ethereal prophecy Nodded our heads until our thorn-crowns spun off Into glowing disks I didn't know it then, that this day would be my favorite A holy day. All was forgiven With the smell of dead pigeons still fresh on my fingers Ashe