You had always been lucky,
tiptoeing over red
coals unblistered, just missing
the lick of flame, the terrible
shriek of the nerve;
it couldn’t last forever.
You were always a witch,
which is to say a woman
not yet quite cowed enough,
and it couldn’t be allowed.
You had to learn. They were
always going to come
for you, and find you
in the end. You were
always going to burn.
Catherine Carter, raised on the eastern shore of Maryland by wolves and vultures, now lives in Cullowhee, growing new English teachers and trying to avoid rock-rash from kayak-rolling. Her work has previously appeared in two books from LSU Press, Best American Poetry 2009, Orion, Poetry, and Ploughshares, among others.