Smoke

Smoke, it is all smoke

in the throat of eternity. . . .

For centuries, the air was full of witches

Whistling up chimneys

on their spiky brooms

cackling or singing more sweetly than Circe,

as they flew over rooftops

blessing & cursing their

kind.



We banished & burned them

making them smoke in the throat of god;

we declared ourselves

"enlightened."

"The dark age of horrors is past,"

said my mother to me in 1952,

seven years after our people went up in smoke,

leaving a few teeth, a pile of bones.



The smoke curls and beckons.

It is blue & lavender

& green as the undersea world.

It will take us, too.



O let us not go sheepishly

clinging to our nakedness.

But let us go like witches sucked heavenward

by the Goddess' powerful breath

& whistling, whistling, whistling

on our beautiful brooms.