4X2
an online poetry journal
Photo by Melissa Hotchkiss
Repetition ritual for summoning the good witch
by KT Herr
On a large screen I watch ice-
fisted hail shatter a windshield. Something about storm
footage gets the beams of my body
hot. Thrumming. Like they could lift
& land in some swifter place. Later, a real storm
tramples Florida. The air conditioner
exhales to a halt, then clears
its throat coming back on. Between its purrs & gurgles
I’m itching for a pattern
I can touch. I twist the blinds closed
& open again. Fingers of my left hand calloused
from someone else’s chords. Think: I must be waiting
for a sign. Something about joy
makes me foolish, lets me believe in nonsense
like destiny. Diet pills. Stimulus
packages. I go & go
out into summer’s wet
pulse, where geckos can’t quiet
their ode. I return & return. Songs earned
& thieved dwell in my hands, my throat; then scatter
like leaves to line the walk. Something…
maybe when in the act of opening
my door I pause, expecting a cat
who’s not there to badger out. A sign of what? I made story
from dream, brought love’s stink
like a bad witch
with me in the gale. The cat
is back in Michigan. Maybe he sleeps
on top of her. The symphony of frogs
will not abate. Diligent spiders try & try
to dress me in their silks. Night is a feast
of blood aloft on tiny wings, & she is
eaten from me. Before I ever
fell in love, I wrote a song
whose chorus went: come out, come out,
wherever you are. I was channeling
the good witch. I need her pink
benevolence; her snow, chilling my heavy-
lidded poppies. I trim
my nails, clunk sodden heels, wonder if I’m
awake. Wonder which fold to pinch
to send this body home.
Poet's Statement: This poem arrived last summer during a residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Cornelius Eady, our mentoring artist, urged us to consider collaboration, hybridity, overlap, and poetry-as-song. I was falling in love while also, still, for a long time, out of love. My body hadn’t spoken to me for a while and I struggled to listen. The air; the insects; the storm-thrashed foliage; the Oz-like dreaminess of the Florida bush all collaborated in a sort of attempted translation. Then I translated their translation into this poem.
Bio: KT Herr (she/her) is a queer poet, songwriter, and curious person whose poetry is published or forthcoming in Frontier, Quarter After Eight, Dream Pop, and others. She currently lives in Oak Bluffs, MA, where she teaches remote poetry classes, flirts with neighborhood skunks, and regularly sharpens her kitchen knives.