the war on witches
—my grandma doesn’t know. My grandma watches
the news. We hear a woof and I woof back—my grandma thinks
I’m dead//talking like a dog//coyote-hungry—I can’t find any money so
I work for it in the night.
My grandma thinks I’m a bad ghost walking into her house. I look like a cousin
of a cousin from at least fifty years ago. I look like somebody that used to cut
her hair in the city. I look like my face is a vacant hole where a shotgun could be.
I don’t know why I’m telling you this//I’ve never seen the news-clipping//if you
were going to kill me I’d be killed already. I’d be in the trunk or in the shower
or on the roadside with dirt and silver coins for eyes. But I’d be surprised
if you did it so peacefully. I’d be surprised if you didn’t pray
to your crusader’s cross right after//it’s all such easy math anyway//adding
the weight of my heart as a mark of your purpose then the heft of that number
growing bigger and bigger—my grandma doesn’t trust strange men.
My grandma doesn’t know what happened to her friends.
First published in the Winter/Spring 2020 issue of The Southampton Review.