Listen to Victoria Kennefick read this poem.
Naturally inclined to witchcraft in the way of most children,
alone in the garden my daughter makes a potion from
rainwater,
flowerheads, and sticks,
an empty snail shell (deep as an ear canal),
small rocks,
and grass.
The more elaborate concoctions
require
pulled-up roots,
weary petals ground on the path to turn the water pink,
strands of my salt-and-pepper hair pulled out with tiny, furious fists.
(At least she prays to trees for their permission to use bark.)
After storms
she hunts for fallen eggs
to add to the mixture,
the lump in my throat ovum-shaped,
ready to crack.
She only harvests rotten ones,
they have more magic, she maintains,
I think only of the embryo decaying.
Sometimes, she catches
the frantic sounds of the parent birds
in her skirt—
but they are too sad to use most days.
Potions and soup she likes to serve
in her play pool,
a bucket,
flowerpots,
a dog bowl,
in a deep hole she dug in the garden.
Bundles of long grasses, leaves,
other treasures she ties to low hanging branches
or places in the nook of a rock.
She aggressively offers mud and dandelions
to any worm she sees. Today she’s perfected a love potion,
yesterday a poison for enemies.
The antidote is to eat bugs or store rocks in the mouth.
She is very knowledgeable. I tell her so
as she fills her baby doll’s bottle
with an elixir to make a baby sister.