by the seventh day
when the sun rose before her
the finger bones of a wise woman
ached portentous

each blue hour
she was to feed
six black hens buckwheat
and crickets and the waning
moon was to slip into something
more or less

instead feathered ladies
brooded cauldron clouds
pecked at her foundation
all four clawed feet bled
iron and collapsed
into pebbles and loam

green charms shattered
pinned and needled her netting
hexagrams snarled in wire
and twine, five pointed stars caught

fire; she lost her favorite
gloves between dowsing rods
sacrificed three fingertips
to bloodless salamanders

in the fading she mistook
hemlock for hyssop
wormwood for cedar
and two village children
left at sundown as ghosts

behind the rust
of an unlatched gate
one witch overgrows
her magic defoliates
in dislocated sleep

[Mariel Herbert likes to write little mythic poems. Some of these can be found in Corvid Queen, Dwarf Stars 2022, Eternal Haunted Summer, and Eye to the Telescope. Mariel can be found near the Pacific Ocean or online at marielherbert.wordpress.com.]