The Witch Series

The Night Witches - 1941

Flew over the Soviet Union,

bombing the Nazis

in wooden planes

no one else wanted to fly.

They wore saggy

ill-fitting men’s

uniforms, flew

without parachutes,

got frostbite on their faces

in open cockpits,

and cut their engines

to glide in over their targets.

Russian women who didn’t

care whether they lived

or died, flying so low

you could see their faces

glowing against the sky.

The Germans said they took

magic pills that gave them

night vision. They laughed

and painted their lips with

navigational pencils, drew

flowers all over their planes.