✨ Spellcaster

she can speak to roses ...

Spellcaster

A golden-haired girl born
in a month of sacrifice,
poor little lamb

throws off her wool coat
and pulls out boots she stole
and rides off on a reindeer instead

and of course she can speak to roses—
isn’t that the point?
Eventually she ends up in a castle

but it’s not her home.
It’s a place to liberate,
to escape, to decimate.

The whole place collapses,
a series of chandeliers made
of glass and ice. Off she goes.

Blackberries and currants in her pockets.
Roses blooming in her footpaths.
Wouldn’t you rather be the girl
that casts her own spells?

—Jeannine Hall Gailey

“Spellcaster” used by permission of the poet. First appeared in Poetry Magazine April 2020. Enjoy more from the poet in Flare, Corona, BOA Editions Ltd., Copyright © 2023. Photo by Dmitry Vasilyev, Creative Commons, via Unsplash.