By Erin Rhees
Who cares if you float or sink in Lake Constance?
Everyone knows you’re a witch.
Conjure milk from the handle
of an ax. Grow plots rich with slippery elm
and nettle, charm the neighbor’s ox
to speech. Listen, it was Mother who first
clotted cream with a glance, who,
in smothering dreams, still warns against
corners and all their gibbering shadows.
Don’t sit there like an abscessed tooth.
Life purls. Like common knotweed, resist.
Look–flying ahead. A blue warbler.