innerwinter

You are a witch, I think.
You look bitter,
as you rake the brown grass and
soil from the earth, clear
the old birdhouse of feathers & dirt.

Baba Yaga, I’ll call you.
Abuelita.
You remind me of my grandmother,
her face always stuck
like she was fed a lemon
the day before she was born.

You never smile when I walk past
or when I lay out a towel to catch some sun
like you know
this light is always fleeting.

& what is left to do
is work,
& clean, & tend to the laundry,
& sweep the dust from your brow.

And it’s strange,
that I resent you,
for not feeling any joy as you
perform the same tasks,
year after year.

Peering into my window when I
rest, and dance, and sing, and eat,
saying soon—

this job will be yours,
soon
it will be your turn to pick the
fruit, and the piles of sticks,
rake me through the earth,
& drag spring out by its
sticky childish hands.

 
Ale de Luis is a Spanish Canadian writer currently living in Scotland, where she is doing her masters in
the history of psychiatry. You can also find her work in The Selkie, The Inkwell, and Mxogyny. Get in touch with her on Twitter @fluoxe_queen, or on Instagram @churchofmidnight.