[Rook]

Catechism For A Witch's Child
by J L Stanley

When they ask to see your gods,
your book of prayers,
show them lines
drawn delicately with veins
on the underside of a bird's wing.
Tell them you believe
in giant sycamores mottled
and stark against a winter sky
and in nights so frozen
stars crack open,
spilling streams of molten ice to earth,
and tell them how you drank
the holy wine of honeysuckle
on a warm spring day
and of the softness
of your Mother
who never taught you
death was life's reward
but who believed in the earth
and the sun
and a million, million light years
of being.