Word Witch
She’ll tease and tempt with mystic words,
This foxy sorceress.
Her syntax soars like sun-bound birds –
This wizard poetess
Casts slick dactylic spells that sing
Of Cupid’s carnal kiss.
Her saucy muse is sure to bring
A red, red rose and diamond ring,
But cannot conjure bliss.
She’ll thrill and spill the sweetest sea
Of honey in keen ears –
A silken trill, a symphony
That drips with dead men’s tears.
She’ll summon rapture in the croon
Of sirens in the mist.
They’ll steal a soul and melt a moon,
Caress the senses till they swoon,
But will not conjure bliss.
Her cauldron bubbles with the tale
Of hearts that yearned then burned –
Raw hearts that sought romance’s grail
In dreams that Venus spurned.
Spleen boils with wing of turtle dove
In misery’s abyss –
All stirred by seer of toad-skin glove
Whose lyric lure (devoid of love)
Will never conjure bliss.
Susan Jarvis Bryant
