Heresy

Old women cackling, crackling like worn bone-
stir that cauldron up with gossip, day old truths.
At your windows cheap talk flits between,
suspended like a length of thin rope
laundry at your feet-
You’ve hung me out,
beat the dust from me,
wrung the stains until your hands chapped
pink as your clacking tongue-
“Did you hear? Did you hear?”
Magpies feathering their nests with words,
plucking a tasty morsel-
“things been odd since that one’s come…”
“things not quite right, haven’t you heard?”
Wag a crooked finger at me,
Say what thou will, say what thou like-
I can only laugh, cock my hips as i walk away-
And when engaging those old men
in conversation behind a lifted palm-
the web of lashes against my cheek,
the cut of my glance my accusations shall cast-
For when day drags night down by her inky garters,
and when my bare feet tattoo a circle of my floor,
and when my fingertip has marked the page-
I will have plucked your bent black feathers,
then i will have my say.