witch

the rope cuts her naked waist as it lowers her into the icy water.

she floats (like a downy duck), dreaming of her dead husband's blood stained trousers. and so it begins.

after a month she is donned in a fine gray skirt (a lady's skirt)

the mens gazes (not men, monsters) hold satisfaction (not satisfaction, but god),

and her hands which cast the net to satiate starvation, which stroked her cheek; her hands which "summoned the storm," her hands which "bewitched the women," bound.

she gulps the smoke tastes it in her throat (her throat which serviced the devil) feels the flames at her hair the bruised petals (inflicted by god of course) on her body her gaze slips from the woman in the crowd she looks upwards upwards towards their supposed god he does nothing (he is a man).

but then the rope slackens. the fire dies, her hair loosens from its braid, and the other woman, her eyes aflame (the devil), raises her palm. there is no god to save her, only a human woman, the only real live witch the men ever saw (will ever see).

the rope snaps around the god-mans neck- drags him as if by horses over the edge of the cliff (as it had dragged her earlier) but this time it slithers into the water and disappears forever.

the other men melt one by one, turning into the fish that kept the women alive that winter. the gray skirt splits in two and the blushing pilgrims meet.

only the women remain next to the witch's hill, their hearts covered in softly swaying heather, their eyes watching for whales beached on the shore.