We burn the witch, the old goat the little old man of the old year and our scapegoat carries our sin. We are blameless now, we are forgiven. We burn the Other for easy atonement, give over the bad ones surrender the sorceress, conjurer, evil eye hand over the misfit, misbegotten, miscreant. Consensual fire cleans bone to white and dissolves fleshy folly to ashes while we sleep gently tucked beneath a blanket of snow by cool white long slender hands. Come a cold morning those ashes will mark each clean brow with grey dust but tonight we dream the blank white screen while our shadow selves scream in the bonfire.
Wren Donovan Originally published in The Dillydoun Review, TDR Daily, 2021