Malleus Maleficarum

"Keep rosemary by your garden gate, plant lavender for luck, and fall in love whenever you can."

Two wise women, from across the universe, fall asleep under the same moon.
Separated by aging and change, yet boiling blood binds them to the same creator.
Each night, from miles away, with palms pressing to the bottoms of the floor,
they transfuse their will into universal energy; 
wishing always for another life. 

In Cali, from the beaches of the west coast, where,
on the second floor of her apartment building,
sand crunches beneath her sandals and onto sticky hardwood.
The salty chuck stench lingers in patches of warm air throughout the open rooms,
and cloth tapestries that collect dust feel smooth and inviting;
the kind of touch you miss from home.
While, all along a sad bunch of tomatoes and basil lay lazily on the counter.
Amid soft light seeping from the kitchen, there she stood with a granite mortar bowl
collecting limbs of plants from the balcony greenroom.
Velvet and veiny between her fingers, they must feel like chosen ones.
A sweet mix of dogs tongue, lambs ears, and lost thyme are ground to dust;
and behind the bruised sky, she releases a great sigh of air,
"Life is good, but it's only getting better for me."
causing the powder to disintegrate towards the light of the moon.

Where on the opposite side of the hemisphere, across meadows of cordgrass
and brackish marshes which flow in and out of the Chesapeake Bay;
a girl lay vertical on a rather large salt rock.
Four feet and ten inches in all, with terribly blue eyes invariably
fuming over a cigarette; she etches and impress a 666 into the side of a 
mineral forming absurdly from the surface of the earth.
Hulking grey clouds hug the sky in late afternoon, leaves expose themselves 
white-bellied and raw; signaling a storm.
The girl kicks sand away and places carefully a handful of oval stones in a circle.
A small fig branch was planted immaturely near the tide of the water,
billowing in the wind still; she grabs a pinch of pulverized salt rock, a fist of sand,
and smooshes together two dried fig leaves.
A gust of wind wraps around her body, and a trail of granules blows from her hand
as she paces counterclockwise round the circle.
A lightening strike snaps brilliant white light across the sky, the girl jumps
before her cigarette butt hit the middle of the ring, 
a zap of fire and great clouds of smoke soar from the mound of sand.
The energy of such a combustion sent water rushing to her eyes,
as she holds up a hand shielding the light, she realizes a fiery star ignites 
before her. A blood orange sun is slowly drowning deeper into the bay,
the girl who stands in the middle is embracing this wholeness,
"Anywhere you go, I will follow, even if it's only in sprit,"
she whispers in flashes of smoke and ash.

Time phases and two moons coincide with each other far away and out of sight,
jarring layers of sediment underneath, and above.
When sisters in blood are calling for a gift, sharp objects break skin, exsanguinate;
with palms pressing to the bottoms of the floor, 
they come up empty every time.   





If you've read to the end, thank you. -MT