Last Days of a Witch: Sarah Cloyce

At first I didn't hear the whispers,
didn't understand how this could happen,
not to me.  I thought it didn't show
if I didn't show it.  I smiled.  I talked.
I fixed my hair and pressed my creases.
People seemed to take me in.  Their children
became my friends.  I carved into my life
a solitary path, pure and wretched.
I kept away from my sisters, Rebecca and Mary,
planted a flag in my property and integrity
and only told one lie:  my past.
I had no shame, but I had to pass.

Samuel, Samuel, where are you now?
I need you to testify on my behalf.

I certainly would have gone unnoticed
if I lived in a place that wasn't fearing
its shadow, that wasn't looking
hard and condemning innocents.
I need to get serious!  I can't pretend
I will not hang or burn.  I must
find a place where they can't reach me.
The children, God, the children talk loose,
unaware of who dangles on their empty prattle.
Once I didn't have to hear it.
Now I don't have to care.  But I do.

Send message to Samuel, I'm in Boston Jail.
If I'm still here tomorrow I surely will hang.

I caught their babies, nursed and taught.
I deigned not to bleed them half to death.
For what I've done this is what I will get:
escape in this hay wagon in the night;
no recourse to address their wrongs,
to name myself with pride and wear
rejection openly, to hang at the end
of their power and fear.  I will not!
Let this haystack burn in their small minds.
Tomorrow I'll be gone, but I won't be --

Comments

[haley]

this dose not make since sarah cloyce was not a witch!!!!!! she was tried but and put in prison but she made it to the end she was determined to survive and she did!!!!! in the end when the trials were all over she was rescued from a farmers shed by her husband and nephwe! sothere for she is not a witch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

[sacasy]

i dont get it is it s poem?