HALF-HANGED MARY a blackened apple stuck back onto the tree.

HALF-HANGED MARY a blackened apple stuck back onto the tree. 2. Define
("Half-hanged Mary" was Mary Webster, who was accused of "trussed".
witchcraft in the 1680's in a Puritan town in Massachusetts and Trussed hands, rag in my mouth,
hanged from a tree - where, according to one of the several surviving a flag raised to salute the moon, 3. How is she
accounts, she was left all night. It is known that when she was cut similar to a flag
down she was still alive, since she lived for another fourteen years.) old bone-faced goddess, old original, being raised?
who once took blood in return for food.
7pm
The men of the town stalk homeward,
Rumour was loose in the air excited by their show of hate,
hunting for some neck to land on.
I was milking the cow, their own evil turned inside out like a glove,
the barn door open to the sunset. and me wearing it.

I didn't feel the aimed word hit 1. What types of 9pm 4. Who are "the
and go in like a soft bullet. people were bonnets"? Why
I didn't feel the smashed flesh vulnerable to The bonnets come to stare, are they afraid?
closing over it like water these kinds of the dark skirts also,
over a thrown stone. the upturned faces in between, 5. What favors had
charges during mouths closed so tight they're lipless. she done for these
I was hanged for living alone this period? I can see down into their eyeholes
for having blue eyes and a sunburned skin, and nostrils. I can see their fear. women?
tattered skirts, few buttons,
a weedy farm in my own name, You were my friend, you too. 6. What could
and a surefire cure for warts; I cured your baby, Mrs., happen if they try to
and flushed yours out of you,
Oh yes, and breasts, Non-wife, to save your life. help her? What
and a sweet pear hidden in my body. would "rub off"?
Whenever there's talk of demons Help me down? You don't dare.
these come in handy. I might rub off on you,
like soot or gossip. Birds
8pm of a feather burn together,
though as a rule ravens are singular.
The rope was an improvisation.
With time they'd have thought of axes. In a gathering like this one
the safe place is the background,
Up I go like a windfall in reverse, pretending you can't dance,
the safe stance pointing a finger.

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I understand. You can't spare I'm reduced to knotted muscle. 8. How is Death like
anything, a hand, a piece of bread, a shawl Blood bulges in my skull, a crow? A judge? A
against the cold, my clenched teeth hold it in;
a good word. Lord I bite down on despair dark angel?
knows there isn't much
to go around. You need it all. Death sits on my shoulder like a crow 9. What is she trying
waiting for my squeezed beet to convince herself to
10pm 7. What are her of a heart to burst
feelings toward so he can eat my eyes do?
Well God, now that I'm up here
with maybe some time to kill God right now? or like a judge
away from the daily How do you muttering about sluts and punishment
fingerwork, legwork, work know? and licking his lips
at the hen level,
we can continue our quarrel, or like a dark angel
the one about free will. insidious in his glossy feathers
whispering to me to be easy
Is it my choice that I'm dangling on myself. To breathe out finally.
like a turkey's wattles from this Trust me, he says, caressing
more than indifferent tree? me. Why suffer?
If Nature is Your alphabet,
what letter is this rope? A temptation, to sink down
into these definitions.
Does my twisting body spell out Grace? To become a martyr in reverse,
I hurt, therefore I am. or food, or trash.
Faith, Charity, and Hope
are three dead angels To give up my own words for myself,
falling like meteors or my own refusals.
burning owls across To give up knowing.
the profound blank sky of Your face. To give up pain.
To let go.
12 midnight
2am
My throat is taut against the rope
choking off words and air; Out of my mouth is coming, at some
distance from me, a thin gnawing sound
which you could confuse with prayer except that
praying is not constrained.

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Or is it, Lord? bear I will be born this is 12. What does she see
Maybe it's more like being strangled a crime I will not as her only crime? What
than I once thought. Maybe it's acknowledge leaves and wind
a gasp for air, prayer. hold onto me is the significance of the
Did those men at Pentecost I will not give in repetition of the word
want flames to shoot out of their heads? "born/borne"?
Did they ask to be tossed
on the ground, gabbling like holy poultry, 6am 13. How long has she been hanging?
eyeballs bulging?
Sun comes up, huge and blaring,
As mine are, as mine are. no longer a simile for God. 14. Why is the sun
Wrong address. I've been out there. no longer a simile for
There is only one prayer; it is not
Time is relative, let me tell you God?
I have lived a millennium.
the knees in the clean nightgown

on the hooked rug 10. What two different

I want this, I want that. kinds of prayers is she I would like to say my hair turned white
Oh far beyond. overnight, but it didn't.
talking about? What is Instead it was my heart:
Call it Please. Call it Mercy. HER prayer? bleached out like meat in water.

Call it Not yet, not yet,

as Heaven threatens to explode

inwards in fire and shredded flesh, and the angels caw.

3am 11. Why is the wording Also, I'm about three inches taller.
here so deliberately This is what happens when you drift in space
Wind seethes in the leaves around listening to the gospel
me the tree exude night awkward here? What is of the red-hot stars.
birds night birds yell inside the poet trying to show Pinpoints of infinity riddle my brain,
my ears like stabbed hearts my heart a revelation of deafness.
stutters in my fluttering cloth us?
body I dangle with strength At the end of my rope
going out of me the wind seethes I testify to silence.
in my body tattering Don't say I'm not grateful.
the words I clench
my fists hold No Most will have only one death.
talisman or silver disc my lungs I will have two.
flail as if drowning I call
on you as witness I did 8am
no crime I was born I have borne I When they came to harvest my corpse

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(open your mouth, close your eyes) an ambiguous nimbus,
cut my body from the rope, medallion of my ordeal.
No one crosses that circle.

surprise, surprise: Having been hanged for something 18. How have things
I was still alive. I never said, changed since her
I can now say anything I can say.
Tough luck, folks, hanging? How has
I know the law: Holiness gleams on my dirty fingers, she changed? What
you can't execute me twice I eat flowers and dung, is her mental state?
for the same thing. How nice. two forms of the same thing, I eat mice
and give thanks, blasphemies
I fell to the clover, breathed it in, 15. How might the gleam and burst in my wake
and bared my teeth at them townsfolk have felt when like lovely bubbles.
in a filthy grin. they found her still alive? I speak in tongues,
You can imagine how that went over. my audience is owls.

Now I only need to look My audience is God,
out at them through my sky-blue eyes. because who the hell else could understand me?
They see their own ill will Who else has been dead twice?
staring them in the forehead
and turn tail

Before, I was not a witch. 16. Why does she say this? The words boil out of me,
But now I am one. coil after coil of sinuous possibility.
The cosmos unravels from my mouth,
all fullness, all vacancy.

Later ~Margaret Atwood~

My body of skin waxes and wanes 17. How do the
around my true body, townsfolk feel about
a tender nimbus.
I skitter over the paths and fields her now? Why?
mumbling to myself like crazy,
mouth full of juicy adjectives
and purple berries.
The townsfolk dive headfirst into the bushes
to get out of my way.

My first death orbits my head,

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