October 2026

Photo by Anton Darius on Unsplash

The Queimada Burns the Women by Dolo Diaz

You set the liquor on fire: Burning Water, made from fermented skins of

Albariño grapes. Drop in lemon peel, coffee beans, strike a match. It

burns and burns in a large clay pot set on the ground on three clay feet.

With a clay ladle you lift the spirit and let it pour back into itself, ribbons

of blue flame. Everything grows quiet. Pupils reflect the fire, the spell, the

conxuro. It begins with two kinds of owls. Frogs and salamanders, rabbit

feet, the stench of the dead. And then the women. Witches fare well in

Celtic lands, rulers of ancient foggy hills. They straddle brooms defiantly,

don’t give a damn. The conxuro has them bathing on beaches of thick

sand, elbows rubbing with the forces of Hell. But their human forms—

the women—just burn. For the evil of their barren wombs. For the sharp

tongues of those married to old men. You hear their roars. They burn in

the burning water. As a child, my spell: watching the circle of fire—I

want to grow up to be a witch.

Bio

Dolo Diaz is a scientist/poet with roots in Spain, currently residing in California. Her work has appeared in ONE ART, The Summerset Review, Centaur, The Indianapolis Review, and 2River View, among others.

Author's note

I grew up in northern Spain, where Celtic traditions include the queimada, a ritual of burning liquor and a spell called the conxuro. As a child, I was fascinated by its witches, who fly on broomsticks and bathe on beaches, but the spell also speaks about women in darker ways. This piece grew out of that contrast and the realization that, for women, embracing the witch in ourselves can be a way of claiming freedom.