Elizabeth Willis’ most recent book Alive: New and Selected Poems (New York Review Books, 2015) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her other books of poetry include Address (Wesleyan, 2011), recipient of the PEN New England / L. L. Winship Prize for Poetry; Meteoric Flowers (Wesleyan, 2006); Turneresque (Burning Deck, 2003); The Human Abstract (Penguin, 1995), a National Poetry Series selection; and Second Law (Avenue B, 1993). Her poems have appeared in recent issues of Hambone, Harper’s, The New Yorker, Poetry, and A Public Space. Willis has also edited a volume of essays entitled Radical Vernacular: Lorine Niedecker and the Poetics of Place (Iowa, 2008). In 2012 she received a Guggenheim fellowship for poetry. Willis has held residencies at Brown University, the MacDowell Colony, the Ucross Foundation, the Centre International de Poésie, Marseille, the READ seminar, and the Lannan Foundation. From 1998-2002 she was Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Mills College. From 2002-2015 she taught at Wesleyan University, where she served as Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing. Since 2015 she has been on the permanent faculty at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
The Witch
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 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 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 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 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.
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