A witch can charm milk from an ax handle.
A witch
bewitches a mans 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 witchs bones
will make a fine glue.
A witch will pretend not to be looking at
her 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 mans chamber.
A witchs
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 may be
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 little lead in the eye.
Enchanting witchpowder may be hidden
in a girls 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 mans
shelf.
I have personally known a nervous young
woman who often walked in her
sleep.
Isnt 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
youve done.
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Elizabeth Willis is author of Address, Meteoric Flowers, and Turneresque.
Stefania Heim, Wild By
Nature
Susan Stewart, Elizabeth
Willis: Winner of the Tenth Annual Boston Review Poetry
Contest