New England, 1687

Crows hang in the air;
Dead black coals
In the center of a snowman's face.
The muffled crunch of boots
On frozen grass;
The hollow snapping
Of sparrow bones.
A young woman in a stiff dress
The color of eggshells,
Her red-brown hair spilling out
Onto her shoulders
Like blood onto pale thighs,
Flanked by two men
In heavy capes and tall black hats.
They walk past clusters of silent people
With thin garrotte mouths
And eyes like ink on parchment,
Towards a wooden platform
Which rises like a pulpit
From a clearing by the church.
As the woman climbs
The steps to the scaffold,
I roll over in my fever-bed.
My one regret is leaving my children motherless.
A rope is pulled lustfully
around the woman's neck.
She raises her head
And in a voice as sharp as a bishop's mitre,
She says, "You are the ones
Doing the Devil's work, Not I."

David W. Aronson