Tuesday poem: Thirteen reasons for burning her
December 19, 2011
Thirteen reasons for burning her
One irrevocable stutter from left-handed mouth,
forever failing to birth ovate words.
Seven skin tags, crooked nipples of flesh,
sprouting from her sordid shoulders.
(For the Devil to suck from behind
for his greater convenience. Many teated sow.)
Three companions inside her cottage:
wrinkly goat, grey cat (black in smoked disguise), inexplicable toad.
Fluency with rare herbs, no flustered stutter there.
And a bovate of best land, just beside the river.
P.S. Cottier
From The Glass Violin
Other (hopefully more bewitching and seasonally appropriate) poems can be found at the Tuesday poem hub.
PS Cottier 
Whoa – dark poem! Powerful. Thanks, PS, for stopping me in my tracks.
I was tossing up about this one or more traditional yuletide fare…but you can’t really beat a burnt woman at Christmas, can you!
Thanks Mary.
Snow and Flame – Very Christmassy 😉
And a nicely dark poem.
Cheers and Seasons Greetings. Have a great Holiday.
The website’s snow provides interesting paratextuality, especially when it collides with this poem. Wonderful! Have a safe holiday season.
Excellent – love the use of language to create that sense of menace. Sad to think of all those women who were burned as witches. Might have been me once!
Might have been anyone, I think, Kathleen. Although I do have herbs in my garden. And a frog on my blog. Thanks for commenting.
AJ and Orchid,
The snow just appeared, sent by WordPress in the Northern Hemisphere, but I quite like it. There’s one photo of me nursing a drink, and I keep hoping a flake will fall into that.
I obviously have too much time on my hands.
A very apposite poem given the ‘news from everywhere.’ I appreciated the darkness of the theme and power of the language.