Witches

In the marketplace, dry sticks are piled high

A thicket of shadows, a poor coat to wear

I am but a wax image of myself, a doll's body 

Sickness begins here, I am the dartboard for witches

The devil can only eat the devil out 

In the month of red leaves, I climb to a bed of fire

Blaming the dark, the mouth of a door 

The cellar's belly, they've blown my sparkler out 

A black-sharded lady keeps me in a parrot cage 

The dead have such large eyes 

I am intimate with a hairy spirit 

Smoke wheels from the beak of this empty jar 

If I am a little one, I can do no harm 

Sitting under a potlid, tiny and inert as a rice grain 

They turn the burners up, ring after ring 

We are full of starch, my small white fellows, we grow 

It hurts at first, the red tongues will teach the truth 

Mother of beetles, unclench your hand 

I'll fly through the candles' mouth like a singeless moth 

Give me back my shape, I am ready to construe the days 

I coupled with dust in the shadow of a stone 

My ankles brighten, brightness ascends my thighs 

I am lost, I am lost, in the roves of all this light. ("Witches") by Courtney Weaver Jr.