When I am dead
you may tell the story
of how, in a land not far away,
a woman’s torment became rage
and her rage grew flesh, drew breath,
and in the night
crept down a witching tree
in many fox bodies,
not sisters
but a single consciousness.
Scores of sharp teeth
ripped open silken cocoons
and under a raw, gnawed
autumn moon,
she smiled like broken glass,
admiring all of her knife-long fingers
delicate
red
dripping.