The Witch - Emma Goldman-Sherman

she wants to stop me

I beg her but she's

adamant she's

the stone of flesh at

my lips, the quarry

where crushing fingers

to my teeth become

dropping pebbles

like rainstorms, hail to

beat back the sounds from

my now-engravelled

mouth

if you were shut

up, or slapped silly

buried alive, would

you ever think to

take your time in soft

confessions

I shout

the minute I walk

free from the silo

free from the stuffed sharp

splash of avalanche

the earth carries me

to air to breath O

once the stopping up

stops

I speak the words

without art or care

like a mother in

transition, shameless

unsure of time, how

much/little & who

will hear me before

the witch insists she

stop the blood, make

me quiet-sleep for

another hundred

years, the prick---

---

Emma Goldman-Sherman is a playwright and a poet. Her poems have been published in Oberon, American Athenaeum, The Nasty Women Poetry Anthology and others. Her plays have been produced on 4 continents. She has an MFA from the University of Iowa where she received the Richard Maibaum Award for plays addressing social justice, the Norman Felton Award, and the Jane Chambers Award for Perfect Women. She has received residencies at Millay, Ragdale and twice at WordBRIDGE where she also worked as a dramaturg. She was a dramaturg for GPTC and has taught for AJT. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, LPTW, ICWP and was in the Playwrights Lab at WPTheatre. She runs WriteNow Workshop for new play development and www.BraveSpace.online to support female-identified and gnc writers, especially survivors. She quarantines in upstate NYC by a hidden forest on a salt marsh.