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Witchcraft
When dinner is done, plates put away,
when witches mount their stout brooms,
I release what still binds me...
My dirty secret.
I sing of those nights
I saw him do things
to that child who no longer was me,
but only some semblance of me.
My stand-in.
My prone, breathing diary
of foreshortened memories
inscribed by this man who bartered
his soul for one tiny shudder
into a child's silenced cry.
I shear off a lock of my hair,
burn it as sacrifice to witches
and children who fly now where I did,
give thanks to the coven of women
whose spells lifted me
from what no child should bear
in songs sung en sotto again.
Pris Campbell
©2010
Published in Outlaw Poetry Review
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