Progeny

Pray in the garden past tulips & lettuce. Heads
near spikes announce herbs. Not a single witch
burns here, just married ones. Offspring hit
their knees & weed gray strands from wild hair.
Okra in the battered pot by a banished fire tells
secret tales of pyrophobia & ghosts—dead mothers
caught in the light over ember-smothered cradles.

Sacred Places Tinged with Night

I learned to love him then
under the punctured black
splotched with heaven’s blood
lips no protection against teeth
of scars and ache

My head whirling as though lobbed
from my shoulders rolls
on the same ground our children
kneel upon as they stab their ancestors
with modified letter openers

Gretel on the Couch

For $125 an hour, she talks about her dreams.
For $400 more, she gets liquid to make her sleep—
a holiday coma-feast on a spoon.

No pills (never) because they look like candy.
She can’t stomach sweet stuff… anymore.
Can’t stand being stuffed to pop, swollen and sore.

Her therapist asks about her brother, her twin
and light. But, she left him in the cottage of his mind
hanging out on rafters. She can’t cut his rope.

Around December, she becomes an Atheist—the smell
of gingerbread, the screaming scent of a godless world.
Roasting meat and burning hair are redemptive keys to hell.

And, every time she laughs she swears she hears the witch behind.