The Witch Series

               Collage by Romare Bearden

Conjure Woman

She’s got them all teetering on

the tips of her fingers, tiny as mice.

One flip of the wrist and all the men,

who ever tasted her; then turned 

their faces away, and all the men,

who drove them to ruination, 

go flying to who knows 

where, and who cares?

She holds them up in yellow

curtain light, watches them shift

their weight to keep from falling.

Each one of them knows what he’s

done or not done. It’s chilling them

to the bone to see she’s wearing her

haint blue dress. No more feathers,

no Adam and Eve root. That’s how

very much danger they’re in.

Outside, her bottle tree glistens,

as she squeezes them for good measure,

rolls them between her palms, before

laying them out like sardines

in the bottom of her reddest meanest box.

Tuesday Poem: previously published by Icarus Rising in 2001

painting by Sally Noble

Crow Woman

sits up black as humid earth,

rises out of a wallow of water

and humus, black and stake-burnt

for harboring knowledge,

for power enough say no,

witch woman, cinder saint,

shakes a tail feather loose

and delivers a baby,

footprints filling with ooze

in her wake, as she struts her

reek of passion, muck of sexuality,

stubborn blood that will not come out,

crow woman, shaven headed

intimate of trees and tinctures,

tarred and feathered adultress,

sticky baby you can’t let go of,

nodding earthward, flying, flying,

landing you in the brambles,

earth angel, flying the highways

commuting, commuting

the sentence, the sentence of night,

and you, and you with your sharp

crow eating night kill eyes,

dare you to follow,

dare you to try

to get rid of her.

Tuesday Poem: Previously published in Claiming The Spirit Within: A Sourcebook of Women's Poetry, ed. Marilyn Sewell, Beacon Press 1994

 
Painting by Jules Bastien-Lepage 1879

Jeanne d' Arc

The best thing

was when the voices told

her to dress like a boy,

and stepping out of

the homespun skirts, her long

hair in heaps on the floor,

she put on the armor and knew

it would protect her

from rough hands,

from then on becoming her

skin : silvery scales

hardened over her tenderest

places, and she would never have to

be tender again,

not even when the fire,

trying to consume her, curled

every cell black, sent them flying

up through the air, so many

butterflies she watched

circle away and come back

to enclose her again.

So be it, she said,

for eternity encrusted in angels

darkly whispering: Yes.

Tuesday Poem: Previously published in lingerings (online) in 1999

Hog Barn at the State Fair         

  

The next pig out of the chute

is mottled black over pink,

delicately etched, so it looks

like she’s wearing lace.

And she’s running as fast as she can

around the ring, trying to get away

from the man who wants to show her,

so he hits her harder and harder,

with the stick he's supposed to be using

to guide her toward the judges

who want to take a really good look

at the fruits of his husbandry.

Watch her shoot like a bullet on pointy legs,

wounding the audience, and the man too,

now red-faced, huffing after her, his stick

landing hard on her back. The crack of it

like thunder, making us cringe.

I want to squeal when he hits her.

But then someone nearby, whose favorite

food, like my father’s, is big thick pork chops,

might blow his stack. After all she has

too much mind of her own, that pig,
she lacks discipline -- she didn't turn 
when he tapped her gently, did she? 
No, she went the opposite way,

perverse little twit. She asked for it

by slobbering on his pants leg.

Sweet Jesus, when she’s back in the pen,

the applause is a cloudburst that tries to

wash everything clean. Give that man

a ribbon! Make it black and blue!

Quick as the wind, get the next pair

out and running around the ring!

Tuesday Poem: previously published by Salt Hill Journal in 1990 and Caprice in 1992

Cow Crossing

Each one is a black and white newsreel,

an ache of bones undulating,

a moan against gravity.

Big as cars, they

lurch across the road,

rumble and bellow, eyes bulging

at the boy who shoos them barnward,

as chased and clucked toward milking

they go, placing one dainty hoof

in front of another, careful as two

tightrope walkers, encased in a cow suit,

afraid of falling.

All go except the one

who turns her dark face away from the rest,

flicks her tail at the boy,

at his calls and whistles,

as if he were just a big fly.

She wants to stay lost

in the apples and timothy of the pasture forever.

She twitches and shoulders the air,

sweeping away the stone walls,

the stanchions and hungry machines,

with her slow head.

The stuff in her velvet bag

will clot and curdle

if he doesn't coax her out soon.

What can she do?

Caught, she lows to him softly.