All women are witches, some girls say
When they’re still wet with youth, their pubescent
Goose-flesh still plump and unplucked.

Their rabble is exquisite, their boredom excessive –
They comb dark black braids and watch egg yolks
Crack then spread and shift into shape.

All women are witches, some girls say
As if to rake ash from their mothers’ dark ovens,
Pledge that age will not soil their soft skins.

Some mothers are witches, they say beneath their
Black bonnets, twitching and twisting and flapping
Their arms as if they could take to the air.

Outgrowing their small smocks, their pinafores and petticoats –
With their half-shells cleaved open and their skins spilling out.
They can no longer stomach the smell of copper pennies,
That curdled milk and mother-boiled meat.

The women form lines as if they were elementary.
All women are witches, some girls say.

They soar, they swing! They twist their taut necks
Against their tight ropes, dangling and baring their
Teeth like bleached bone in the sun.

When the crowd cuts them down, the women take
To the ground like blackened apples, whole or
Half-cut, their mouths like sticky insects, like
Overripe wounds made ready for washing.