Incantation
Breathing his name beneath the frost;
the vowels hum on her tongue like a charm.
She buries the trowel into the concrete
earth & places the mass of plug-hole hair
into the gap, alongside ribbon-bound hazel
twigs. Her hands force the brittle dirt
back to its origin; she scrapes a razor blade
across her sinisterly third finger & beds
the incantation home. She continues to
rotate the hex in her throat; only the fear
that the knotted locks might not be his,
force the sound to prickle her skin.
* Sonia Hendy-Isaac has an MA in Creative & Critical Writing; she is now completing her PhD. Her poetry has been widely published in journals; her most recent work can be found in Snakeskin, The Shit Creek Review, Qarrtsiluni, Equinox & Neon. She is also an editor for Iota.