National Poetry Month : Sandra Ridley,

 

TWITCHCRAFT
—An excerpt

 

 

 

Unbidden, a spooklight, a nightmaker, he seems a nikin, a creature, a very soft creature—
his underness, an unkanny prank of second sight.

Yet a fake and a fetch. Riven with affliction, with ravenous crookedness.

Hush, hush.

And sudden, a hocus, a harum-scarum, we mark him as swithen.

So musky and sleek.

 

ò

 

As if he would terrify, and he is somewhat terrifying.

Thou seeist?

Yes, you saw.

 

ò

 

And suddenly he seems a trifle, a phanatic, a phrantic, a nullity, a mere nothing, a phantom appearing a
schismatic trick—

In foxsleep.

He seems a faltering, a mock, a folly under a dead eye.

 

ò

 

And he killed her it seemed, he was so close to killing her, he killed her, and what about your brother, yes, him too.

 We held our own.

 

ò

 

 

 

Sandra Ridley (she/her) is the author of four books of poetry: Fallout, Post-Apothecary, The Counting House, and Silvija. Work here is excerpted from a serial poem, “Twitchcraft,” which will appear in Vixen, a book forthcoming in the autumn of 2023 with Book*hug Press.