On 3rd Ave: a man trying to break into a car
with his bare hands.
I stopped to see if he could do it, but he couldn’t do it.
Tonight my recipe for disaster
is the same as dinner—rice and chicken stock.
I don’t know what to call hunger anymore, his
or mine. In The Craft
Nancy became Sarah so the rapist would want her.
For some people,
to say yes once is to say yes to all eternity,
shackled like a fist to a headboard.
If I were a witch—if the devil permitted me this—
I would learn the words to every spell,
deliver a drug addict to a warm backseat, harm those
who would harm my friends.
I was Nancy’s age. Back then
I held the devil in the crook of my arm
like a sated babe,
like he was my slave. Like I could do anything, undo
anything. And later he held me, splintered
like a wishbone.
Every young witch wants to be Sarah,
even when Sarah is someone else.