Emma Bolden

2 poems

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The Liturgy of the Word

Chapter XV: How they Raise and Stir up Hailstorms and Tempests, and Cause Lightning to Blast both Men and Beasts


Consider the woman.....you seek
........as your savior.....she who you blaspheme
........as bringer of rain

Consider your faith.....in a woman
........is faith.....in a witch

Who but God.....in His Good Grace
........could pry open.....the clouds
........fill your mouths.....with His rain

Consider the woman.....we know
........as a witch

We have seen.....her by crossroads
........plunge knife.....to the cock’s neck

We have seen.....her offer its red
........to the Devil.....raising the corpse
........to the air.....it once flew.....we have seen

her by the ash tree.....dig a hole.....to squat over
........we have heard.....her cursed
........tongue.....flap out

curse words.....we have seen.....her by moontide
........in the blesséd field.....scratching
........her unholy thighs

Who.....but woman
........the thief.....snatching grain
........who God.....begs us to punish
........who brings us hailstones
........who brings us harm


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The Witch Curses the Man Who Betrayed Her


You are a silent.....April
........holding its tongue.....of grain

you are the owl’s.....hush
........and I.....the rat

by talons.....slit.....you are
........the hawk.....cleaning carrion’s smooth

curve.....of skull.....until polite
........without the wild.....interruption

of instinct.....you are.....the rope
........and you.....its noose.....may your wife’s

breasts.....become blank.....may your thumb
........stroke her.....sere.....may her daughter

be by flesh.....betrayed.....barren
........may need.....clench.....her privileged

jaw.....may she seek.....from me
........my catmint bath.....my lady’s

mantle.....my lettuce.....to feed her
........husband lust.....may our

daughter curse her.....with wax slashed
........with worms pinned.....with rue

may our daughter.....be brought to witch
........by her witch.....of a mother.....your brutal

beauty.....your gorgeous hag.....your sweetest
........of all sweets.....your whore

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return to sawbuck 4.2

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Emma Bolden’s chapbooks include How to Recognize a Lady (part of Edge by Edge, Toadlily Press), The Mariner’s Wife (Finishing Line Press), and The Sad Epistles (Dancing Girl Press). She was a semi-finalist for the Perugia Press Book Prize and a finalist for the Cleveland State University Poetry Center’s First Book Prize and for a Ruth Lily Fellowship. She teaches at Georgetown College and is poetry editor of the Georgetown Review.