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The Golem Envisions his Origins

7- The Witch Recants her Recantation

Then again

let him burn the whole city 
down to the ground-- I don’t care.
Let the apostles take their turns
waltzing from the clock--
I’ll saw a fiddle while all
the ghetto and beyond goes up.

I was a country girl. I loved
the country but not the doltish
peasants, their routine pogroms
after every poor harvest or pestilence.
I never desired the blood
of unbaptised infants until I was accused
of such, then I developed the taste.

Woman, Jewess, Witch-
guilty as charged by
an illiterate star
chamber of serfs. I’ve seen

trials by ordeal, the chair-
bound witch drowning
for her innocence. As if
she had any reason to float!

Let my dung lover torch the whole
goddamned world. I’m bored
with fortunes and I’ve rinsed
the leaves from my cups.
There is only one
possible future-- me

floating away, incinerated
upon the irrefutable 
proof of my smoking guilt.

con't.

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