Straw witchdoctors

Straw Witchdoctors
by Luke Roe
Straw witchdoctors
Etched into the leather of a corn patch
Notebook
Scratched with a crude line of lead
Sweeping the feet of husks
Black noise wails from high pitched noses
White shadows loom around burning leaves
Scraping of rakes on the concrete sidewalk
Leaving long fingernails to snatch the feet of children
Whistling by
A leafless forest bends over the tops of dark headed hair
Hanging from the dirt
I howl into the silence of the darkness
Into the cold of isolation’s mouth
Kissing tongues of soft elk mothers
And the vaginas of trees spread their dry lips
At the sound of my feet snapping twigs
And bending the fresh needles
Stretching across death
The winds are pregnant
With the scarecrow child
The termite logs are singing lullabies
To the screaming ravens
And I want to write poems
Across the foreheads of owls,
Chasing after the mice of the night
If I sit cross legged in the early morning
Will you sit with me?
In the cold
In the fall
In the soul
In the black wind pushing at our shoulders
In the song that’s hypnotism bathes in the nostalgia of our hearts
But remember,
That my promises
Only extend as far as I wish them to