our enemies' spectacular deaths

Happy Easter, especially to all my witch wives.

I’ll conjure the perfect Easter
& we’ll plant mini spruces in the yard—
my pink gloves & your green gloves

like parrots from an opera over the earth—
We’ll chatter about our enemies’ spectacular deaths.
I’ll conjure the perfect Easter

dark pesto sauce sealed with lemon
long cords of fusilli to remind you of my hair
& my pink gloves. Your gloves are green

& transparent like the skin of Christ
when He returned, filmed over with moss roses—
I’ll conjure as perfect an Easter:

provolone cut from the whole ball
woody herbs burning our tongues—it’s a holiday
I conjure with my pink-and-green gloves

wrangling life from the dirt. It all turns out
as I’d hoped. The warlocks of winter are dead
& it’s Easter. I dig up body after body after body
with my pink gloves, my green gloves.

—Kiki Petrosino, "Witch Wife" from Witch Wife, 2017.