"Rural Character" by Sheila Wellehan

Rural Character

They still kill witches here —
the women who dare to walk alone
at night by the shore,

girls who visit
their grandparents’ graves
accompanied only by moonlight,

the bitches who don’t flinch
when brawny men
pull back their arms to strike them.

Misfits who giggle when
villagers whisper about them
are battered with stones,

then the mob steals their gold, chanting
This town must be silent.
This town must have order.

Outcasts take comfort
in pills and syringes
till they’re tossed off the bridge —

they float face-down in the river.
Dead witches swing from the trees.

Sheila Wellehan

Sheila Wellehan’s poetry is featured in On the Seawall, Rust + Moth, Thimble Literary Magazine, Tinderbox Literary Journal, Whale Road Review, and many other publications. She’s an assistant poetry editor for The Night Heron Barks and an associate editor for Ran Off With the Star Bassoon. Sheila lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. You can read her work at www.sheilawellehan.com.

Headshot: Shauna Damboise

Photo Credit: Staff