The Witch Series

 

Tex

I was the witch of Religion class,

because my hair curtained

my face, when I read aloud,

and when this nun interrupted me

to ask whattt? I didn’t get it,

and I repeated my version of

what, with its softer ending,

back to her three times,

until she turned red and said,

I was saying that word all wrong.

My T’s, back then, were Paterson T’s.

They fell short of the sound on purpose.

They were about a slow fade

which is better than the sudden

death this city was trying to avoid,

and so was I. What with no money

for college, the future was pretty uncertain.

But she insisted I hit those T’s

so hard, every time I got to a what

or a that in the Old Testament,

that I giggled throughout

my passage, which was

sacrilegious on top of ignorant.

That’s when she called me a witch.

So yeah, this felt like Gunsmoke,

and her bullets bounced right off of me, 

because I was a witch, a strega, in fact,

from a big Sicilian neighborhood.

I pictured her shredding her veil

every time she passed a nail, and

wished it so. Then I made myself

disappear for the rest of the year.

I scried into the future and knew

some day at a high school reunion

I would walk right past her,

and her little cowboy swagger,

as if none of us had ever been

afraid of her, as if she were

just a rerun on TV.