Witch

The cauldron took the low word before the fire was high. A witch stood with the broom against the wall and the hat still on the nail, herbs crushed under a thumb. The night leaned in to listen. That work, not the noise, is what people carried out as a witch gift, a craft that stayed on the hands. It turns up in witch playing cards shuffled slower than a game wants, in a witch notebook whose margin holds a charm half written, in a witch postcard of the cauldron and the waiting broom. The fire drops. The word does not.