DIANNE FEINSTEIN IS DEAD

by Marissa Glover

This is the truest thing 
you will read all day. 
 
Some people mourn
others will rejoice
 
some write about legacy
others, swaths of destruction.
 
It happens every time.
Rush Limbaugh, bin Laden—
 
the women/witches at Salem.
What you see always depends 
 
on where you stand. Just ask
the reporters taking notes
 
at Calvary. There were women
crying at the foot of the cross;
 
there were soldiers gambling
for garments. 
 
If you’re looking for truth,
you will not find it here. 
 
Not even consensus. Except
Dianne Feinstein is dead.
 
Be grateful. Elvis and Tupac
can’t even get that much. 
 
Witnesses of the same car crash
offer cops different details…
 
Who is right? It doesn’t matter.
Everything goes into the report.
 
And someday it will be you,
likely not in the news cycle
 
because you’re not famous.
The only people invited
 
to speak at your funeral will 
have something good to say.
 
But there will always be others,
ready with their own story.
 
The only truth: you are dead.

Marissa Glover lives in Florida, dodging storms and swatting bugs. Her poetry collection Let Go of the Hands You Hold was released by Mercer University Press in 2021. Box Office Gospel was published by Mercer in 2023. Follow her on X (Twitter) at @_MarissaGlover_.

TO BE A WITCH IN SCOTLAND

by Lynn White

From allegations of cursing the king’s ships, to shape-shifting into animals and birds, or dancing with the devil, a satanic panic in early modern Scotland meant that thousands of women were accused of witchcraft in the 16th-18th centuries with many executed. Now, three centuries after the Witchcraft Act was repealed, campaigners are on course to win pardons and official apologies for the estimated 3,837 people–84% of whom were women–tried as witches, of which two-thirds were executed and burned. After a two-year campaign by the Witches of Scotland group, a member’s bill in the Scottish parliament has secured the support of Nicola Sturgeon’s administration to clear the names of those accused, the Sunday Times reported. The move follows a precedent by the Massachusetts House of Representatives in the US that proclaimed victims of the Salem witch trials innocent in 2001. —The Guardian, December 19, 2021

Scotland was not the place to be a witch,

it really wasn’t.

There were more than four thousand witch trials

in Scotland

putting Salem to shame,

the Witch-Finders boasted.

One would suppose that 

wise women did not become witches,

but it seems,

many did

and paid a hot and heavy price.

So not many would be dancing,

even at Christmas,

even in spirit 

few would rise

for the occasion

only the bravest

would celebrate.

But this Christmas in Scotland

there is something more

a vindication,

a recognition of innocence

that does not require bravery to celebrate.

Even though it’s three hundred years late.

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality and writes hoping to find an audience for her musings. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal, and So It Goes.

ALTERNATIVE FACTS

by Nancy Iannucci 

Bridget Bishop’s tavern
was a bump on a buggy ride
from Salem Village to Salem Town

where the menfolk congregated
like hogs over mugs of grog
they watched her closely
as she weaved in and out
of each Goodman,
bobbing like a blood-red
cherry in a cocktail.
they licked their lips
when she spoke outhouse-speak
& tried into the sunrise to intercept
her pass, grope her smicket
underneath a thicket
of red calico but she was
brassy, nimble like a cricket.
her familiar tormented their flesh
as they slept wet from dreams
of her dancing above their beds:
It was Bridget Bishop! they pointed.
She pinned me down in the night;
I could not sleep nor breathe!
the townsfolk sat & swayed
to a melody of alternative facts
& with their eyes closed
chanted in their Sunday best,
Guilty! Lock her up!
Hathorne's gavel pounded
sending her swinging
to the whine
of frictional
wood and twine
& it was there at
Proctor’s Ledge where
the menfolk licked
their lips for the
last time
trusting their
satanic satyriasis
had been cast out
with the witch.

Nancy Iannucci is a historian who teaches history and lives poetry in Troy, NY. Her work is published/forthcoming in numerous publications including Bop Dead City, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Star 82 Review (*82), Gargoyle, Amaryllis, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Typehouse Literary Magazine, Nixes Mate Review,  Poetry Breakfast, Rose Red Review, Three Drops from a Cauldron, and her poem “Howling” won one of Yellow Chair Review’s Rock the Chair Challenges.

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