Under a Cracked Moon

Sarah entered the cemetery on bared feet,
each step marking time to chime of church’s bell.
One. Her sisters were hanged. Two. By men
who wouldn’t know a witch from a rose. Three.
Rebecca because she was married. Four. To a pillar
of power who believed in free speech. Five. Because
they were devout. Six. But did not follow Parris.
Seven. Or share the Putnams’ beliefs. Eight.
Because borders and boundaries are questionable,
never as finite as walls. Nine. Mary suffered
because of her blood. Ten. Lineage was seen
as disease. Eleven. The fools let me survive.
Midnight. She stopped on the final toll,
faced the stone markers of her kin, lined
tools of the dark arts like surgical instruments.
Knife struck her own
vein, bled down entwined lengths
of hangman’s ropes. Her blood mixed with that
of her sisters, as she placed the evidence as X
between their graves. Next, she placed three
chicken bones, the tongue of a frog, and
the eye of a newt in inverted point, facing north.

Shedding cloak and clothes, she danced to her own
chantings, the guttural utterings of the dead. She stopped
when the night’s eye receded, watched the sky for first sign.
Two red stars fell, burned like comets across the black
expanse. She smiled at the thought of their faces
as the ground began to tremble. She waited for them
to investigate, watched them shudder as dawn rose
over empty graves, held her wrists out willingly,
curious to see if they had the balls to try
a witch they knew was real.