City Witch

She sold the city winter air her soul –
so bracing, toxic, bold! – she couldn’t
get enough of what it gave her, so she
bargained with it to enslave her: keep her
for eternity – subjected to whatever use –
as long as she could ramble loose and free

through it as fog. She’d walk another
frigid midday followed by another floating
goblin from the city’s vast fraternity
of kindred beasts: her recompense became
its pay – it loved compulsively repeating
dirty roundelays, which rendered just

the haze she needed to distract it:  to pursue
the dark bliss of her course, and smooth
the creases of her mission. Which was to
join it – be received by it – as witch. Last
week, we’re told, when she was found stiff
in the cold, she made the switch.




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