If you have a breast
You have a witches' hat.
It's as simple as that.
The rope is quick and painless
But the scars acquire permanence
Until they are seen.
Stays with you wherever you go,
The witch wound,
The wearing of the others' hood
Whenever service is refused;
Unlike the New York Pizzeria
The witches had no right.
John Conant, first settler of Salem,
Obvious warlock. First clue.
1688. Quakers and Universalists
Both vie against the torchfires
Of Episcopalian teeth,
Congregationalist spite.
1692. The Devil saw to the detail
Of women's property rights
With horror show girls who had
Trauma compartments
To rattle with voodoo on command
In black face
And project their possession
On the keepers of herbs,
Cultivators of truth running wild
To appease the goat god,
The only reality stingy Cotton
Mather entertained,
When spectral evidence, the craft
Of second sight
Known only to witches, was finally
Accepted into Common Law
As one-time precedent
Against the witches
And Rebekah Nurse was caught in astral
Presence without a license
So the witches could be buried in the sky
Like all the interesting people
Along with some church-key ladies
To please the dark Lord,
Who laughs at dice less loaded
For being pious
And that riotous fun, the cruxifiction
Of Pastor John Proctor
For aspiring to play the role
Of Jesus on the fly.
It was the most fun since the printing press
Made witches famous
And dropped bibles in every bedroom.
There was much to confiscate
Before the witches could be let back
In the community.
But payback is a witch, when the poisoned
Pentagram triumphs,
Daemonic energies only draw the covens
Into tighter weaves,
Perpetuating the energy
When it needs release.
The girls humbled in unmarked dust
Under the gallows' shadow
Have long since moved along
From what was not
Particularly memorable
Until the final act.
As long as we don't have to think about
What rites exactly were performed
To survive the dark Lord's reign,
We are allowed to re-enact
All manner of terror and shame
And grisly sympathy,
A Salem steampunk Halloween
Where the play's the thing
And everyone stays just a shade
Inside the darkness,
For they can't yet walk alone
Into the light.
They need their fellow outcasts
In costumes
To laugh away their old beliefs
The other world was unfaithful.
The scroll's rewritten one heard word
At a time
Until there's nothing left of the old ways
But ghosts,
Some on brooms, some on souvenirs,
A coffee mug
To plan one's next adventure, to fly
Directly overhead.
