Elizabeth Willis

sleeps into heaven with his lamps on, finishing explan- atory negotiations for a while.Desert the enemy. Star formations, sandstone understanding, rock time in gen- eral, whatever. Latching onto ecstasy, words that change on waking, clover as a syrup of spring mind. Working off a deficit of sleep or cash, you know who your friends are. Singled out in traffic, lurching into light, having lunch. You’re a little one with sand in your eyes, with green on your horn, with milk on your chin. With flow- ering ears and hearsay.

A witch can charm milk from an ax handle. A witch bewitches a man's shoe. A witch sleeps naked. "Witch ointment" on the back will allow you to fly through the air. A witch carries the four of clubs in her sleeve. A witch may be sickened at the scent of roasting meat. A witch will neither sink nor swim. When crushed, a witch's bones will make a fine glue. A witch will pretend not to be looking at ber own image in a window. A witch will gaze wistfully at the glitter of a clear night. A witch may take the form of a cat in order to sneak into a good man's chamber. A witch's breasts will be pointed rather than round, as discovered in the trials of the 1950s. A powerful witch may cause a storm at sea. With a glance, she will make rancid the fresh butter of her righteous neighbor. Even our fastest dogs cannot catch a witch-hare. A witch has been known to cry out while her husband places inside her the image of a child. A witch may be burned for tying knots in a marriage bed. A witch may produce no child for years at a time. A witch may speak a foreign language to no one in particular. She may appear to frown when she believes she is smiling. If her husband dies unexpectedly, she may refuse to marry his brother. A witch has been known to weep at the sight of her own child. She may appear to be acting in a silent film whose placards are missing In Hollywood the sky is made of tin. A witch makes her world of air, then fire, then the planets. Of cardboard, then ink, then a compass. A witch desires to walk rather than be carried or pushed in a cart. When walking a witch will turn suddenly and pretend to look at something very small. The happiness of an entire house maybe ruined by witch hair touching a metal cross. The devil does not speak to a witch. He only moves his tongue. An executioner may find the body of a witch insensitive to an iron spike. An unrepentant witch may be converted with a frttle lead in the eye. Enchanting witchpowder may be hidden in a girl's hair. When a witch is hungry, she can make a soup by stirring water with her hand. I have heard of a poor woman changing herself into a pigeon. At times a witch will seem to struggle against an unknown force stronger than herself. She will know things she has not seen with her eyes. She will have opinions about distant cities. A witch may cry out sharply at the sight of a known criminal dying of thirst. She finds it difficult to overcome the sadness of the last war. A nightmare is witchwork. The witch elm is sometimes referred to as "all heart." As in, "she was thrown into a common chest of witch elm." When a witch desires something that is not hers, she will slip it into her glove. An overwhelming power compels her to take something from a rich man's shelf. I have personally known a nervous young woman who often walked in her sleep. Isn't there something witchlike about a sleepwalker who wanders through the house with matches? The skin of a real witch makes a delicate binding for a book of common prayer. When all the witches in your town have been set on fire, their smoke will fill your mouth. It will teach you new words. It will tell you what you've done.

It’s turneresque in twilight. The word comes at me with its headlights on, so it’s revelation and not death. I figure I’m halfway home though I’ve only started. Nothing is moving but me: I’m a blackbird. The neigh- bor’s in labor, but so am I, pushing against the road. Physics tells us nothing is lost, but I’ve been copping time from death and can’t relent for every job the stars drop on my back.

April fool Bear's-foot Bog-onion Devil's-apple Dog parsley Doll's-eyes Fairy hells Flying saucers Four o'clock Gagweed Goosefoot Hare's-ear Indian beans Inkweed Jacob's-coat Lady's-thumb Lion's-beard Locoweed Monkey-fiddle Moonseed Mother-in-law Puncture-vine Naked lady Quaker-bonnets Rabbit-bush Smartweed Sneezeweed Snakegrass Stinking Willie Sundials Swallow-wort Wahoo Wart-cress Witches' thimbles Wolfsbane Wonder berry

When I found your face on a pillow of leaves you had already erased it. A nest so heavy can stay in the heavens only by reversal. By this law the knees are laced with abandon. I said to the young man. If watching is the manufacturer, and I lose you what angel takes the place of a dowry or distance in this leaf action? Subject to like passions as we are my soul herself, myself a possession I could not mistake for the man (his language and Latin) yet we are “taken to” a love passage I had hardly noticed in the late talk of money The work of love and the work of art has no sleeping part Is a drop of light in a small silver socket, a rosy dime in a daylight tryst Is a keeper and no spender As seeing who is invisible: a kind of flaxen thing caught in stone I obeyed and read further “I am hemmed” Though my heart were a pear tree threaded with fire Lion you leapt through me like fineness in the boundary gene Conductor you knit me as isthmus     Can I touch it Night is going 200 miles an hr as usual     In this way we find we are suddenly altered If I were a day would you like me better     Where were you you who in a bath changed me How to be walking is a glorious porthole Must I insist on an absence more foolish and secret When your timber’s a forest I can’t see for the tree in my bed Gentle captive, it is a larger than murder we tender     Fond and afire my style and my anchor Master there’s a boat for no lesser completion than beauty’s sweetest dress when you look on me kind Who am I to stop this flowing Least of all that home mile Sinking in the real I dreamed there was a further island Perhaps (how I thought you) to salt that harness with pleasure Lovely hero where the lovely hero bounds an acre hidden between eros and its errors Finding a dozen darts beneath the skin of Watching the wire of a skinny flame No other lovely hero found the back behind her secret form of symmetry Her gleaming difference Her schoolish way in pretty understandings Said   Not done   Not said   Undone Wealthy sadness has a way of winning everyone This is the end of my body as you know it its superfluous penchant for love its poorer costume, its shiny disaster What is a maiden, boatswain, but a fiery lair and a teary citadel By the smallest shipwreck a daughter is laughter Yet equaled as in a fable this Gibraltar goes headlong in a just king’s love See how his hands are her mercy and measure her number and rescue O Perseus Pythagoras Pierre my Pierre What rules a body’s buried factions when laundered by morning When called by our names although we are invisible Sleeping I forget my animal When the animal comes I’m forgotten because of it How was it called in its own country crossing a street in order to come inside