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.

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