The Magic Women

I often see folklore tales in my dreams

Of sorceress women and waning witches

With ropes around their necks or flailing in black waters

They are always beautiful 

with night sky skin and milky white eyes

but the men who hunt them say 

Their beauty is threatening just like

The runes and healing stones that they clutch to their breasts

What do they know? Is always the question, 

a crystal ball, a palm reading, a fortune-tellers kiss,

Look what I see, they say in unison, a smile playing on their lips,

each with a single tarot card between their teeth.

The Wild Girls

The wild girls run

With Hellhound hearts

and pretty boys who did not stand a chance

Whiplash kisses

and mistakes they held like trophies

All the things you’d say to make them stay

The come-to-bed eyes, the bottles of gin, used matches

an Intoxication anomaly but

There is fire in you yet, your mother said,

Do you remember? That guilt you never wore again.