<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Witch<\/strong><\/p>\n Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford<\/em><\/p>\n A witch was bottled, and stoppered with wax The hand-written ticket does not explain how for more than a century, trouble a-brewing, and precise. If she escaped, her wrath would tempest of apple-corers, wart-cures, mole\u2019s fore-feet She would howl like winds from the lands which offered of seal intestine embroidered with caribou hair, A small girl asks her father if it\u2019s true, says she thinks He hurries her past the shrunken heads; murdered the mutilated, putrifying feet of other daughters, so she could never be contained and labelled. through the night, twisting the minds of men to unspeakable and breakable as the witch-bottle, stretches wide and helpless if the witch began to twist the fire-sticks in their sockets <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Maggie Butt<\/strong>\u2019s fifth poetry collection was Degrees of Twilight<\/i> (The London Magazine) 2015. Maggie is an ex-journalist and TV producer, who supervises Creative Writing PhDs at Middlesex University, and is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow in Kent. http:\/\/www.maggiebutt.co.uk<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Witch Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford A witch was bottled, and stoppered with wax in this ribbed and silvered scent-bottle. The hand-written ticket does not explain how she was captured, but says an old lady warned: \u00a0 if\u00a0 you let her out there\u2019ll be a pack of trouble. Now cramped in this wasp-waisted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[137,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2018-poetry-picks","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17354"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17357,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17354\/revisions\/17357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nin this ribbed and silvered scent-bottle.<\/p>\n
\nshe was captured, but says an old lady warned:
\n\u00a0<\/em>
\nif\u00a0 you let her out there\u2019ll be a pack of trouble.<\/em>
\nNow cramped in this wasp-waisted glass<\/p>\n
\nher anger has matured, grown both expansive<\/p>\n
\nthrough this tip-toed museum. Displays<\/p>\n
\nwould spin and shatter, curiosities whirl in a typhoon.<\/p>\n
\nup the reindeer skin knickers and raincoats<\/p>\n
\ntrash their hard-won, unexpected beauty.<\/p>\n
\nthe bottle is too small to hold a real witch.<\/p>\n
\ntoddlers\u2019 skulls; tiny, silken Chinese shoes to hide<\/p>\n
\nand doesn\u2019t say what spells he\u2019d be prepared to cast<\/p>\n
\nHe doesn\u2019t say that furies roam the world, screeching<\/p>\n
\nacts; or that he knows his love for her looks small<\/p>\n
\nas the sky at evening; and how little he could do<\/p>\n
\ntill the whole world was ablaze with tongues of rage.<\/p>\n