My Grandmother's House by Oliver Egger

There is an old broom, with spiky ends,
On a rusty nail, in my grandmother’s house.
In my childhood, I’d stick it between my legs,
howl like a witch.
I’d creak the bones of that puritan house,
where black smoke pours through the chimney pores
of the hand-laid bricks like burnt bodies.
My grandmother’s bones can be faintly seen
in the daguerreotypes of grey women along the stairs.
Their voices drowned out by the drizzle of a passing New England rain.

My grandma fell a few days ago.
Her pelvis cracking like a preacher’s cross.
The stiff stairs at last betraying her.
When she fell, she was too proud to cry.
So the house cried for her.
Two bodies, billowing sails of centuries.
The past pouring like the blood-bruise beneath your skin.
The earth pulls the foundation of frost and fear deeper down.
Whole lives echo within your wooden palms,
which search for a hand to help you stand.

Witches were burnt black and grey,
indistinguishable bodies, in towns not far from here.
The spears of their crucifix
planted side by side like floorboards.
Their passing glances popped into embers.
When they scraped the skin away,
long after the townspeople had left,
(Snapshots taken, popcorn in the grass.)
Wood woven with woman.
The executioner gets a splinter.

Oliver Egger is a poet born and raised in Durham, North Carolina. He is a rising Junior at Wesleyan University studying English and Religion. His poetry has previously been featured in Moonstone Press. He is also a rare books enthusiast, running the online bookstore: Broken Wing Window Books. You can find out more about the bookstore as well as Oliver’s work at brokenwingwindowbooks.com or on instagram @brokenwingwindowbooks.