AnnMarie Eldon

The Banish-Alternative to Witches

The witches are our ship. Its deck the sea. We lie upon a thin sheet, undulating with the waves, our knees bent into backs of knees where no anatomy names. Sail north against an east coast. Dare wind to drive the counterpane, tugged around chins, ears. We are warm in shared exhale only; the saltdamp searching, seeking between warp and weft, the crest and fall increasing. Seafetch ransacks all intimacies, skin in shiver spots; we tweak blankets to pretend the cold out. Whitecaps whisper in circles above their horizontaless conspiracy and in dreams even the surfzone freezes. Invent a net, contrapted to hitch up against prevailing ice. Ice forms upon its mosquito-surface. We must risk an arm above the bed to tackle a lone, dank haulribbon. Ease it over our numbheads. Uncanter indown within it. Block ice now, outbalancing the wire sprung rim, biting into mini-hinges. Snap it to susurround us. Hang on every indulge to fasten. Yet it bends with the weight of ice. Make the mordant bedding a slivering pine to balance on so that the psyche may recover. We are naked yet the surface solid. Use the soles to tread down any wave formations beneath us. The wiremesh bed husk turns a pale sycamore-cream, becomes bee-keeper gauze, the entire ship ensunned by protection. Ice on the outside lends heatsuck to bare goosedflesh. Pretend heat and the ship can sail on north, slicing ice flows, all mock-hull, flimsy wood and crushable. Turn. Turn the ship to metal. Turn the ship west across the arctic line through obstacles more terrible than diminutive iceneedles into every pore. Sailing steel needs soft. Pull hoods. Pull skirts. Pull sleeves. Pull wraps. All clothing nondescript flimsied atop the head, heads in a chorus. Knuckles masks. Peer out between vista makers. Ponder upon. Drop anchor. At random, dock. The witches little shrivelleds. Make drust. Make seed. Pay heed to blow the deck clean. It is drying in patches where the breath spots. Try stay as a concept. No hay as yet. Nor rock. But home anyway. Take stock.