A Witch's Education

With lyrical malevolence, Serafina Bersonsage chronicles the evolution and dissolution of a literary critic-cum-storybook villain. Frustrated with the Midwest, the titular witch flees a small town for the even smaller world of academia, where she develops a crush on a dead poet and has a date in a psych ward and renames herself at a rest stop Starbucks, before venturing deep into the woods. These poems pair well with poisoned apples and a full-bodied red. SMALL TOWN WITCH Well before I cast a spell they made a witch of me an only child in a school of sisters a wannabe Catholic turned heretic a lonely prodigy so my teacher said staring down my shirt. I was a witch every Halloween but a vampire in first grade on a random bored Tuesday, when I started that particular rumor and caused a panic. Two children were inconsolable; the principal, furious. My mother just poured more wine. I started learning languages ? serpiente ? and was curious about Communion, and couldn?t wait  to taste ? Mela, melas. My mother taught me early about palindromes in this our Salem where the schoolyard held my gallows, where I flew so that I would not swing.