grant chemidlin / poem

Witches

The boys with beards & heels

in the woods, in their circle, feral

for each other, for the night.

I am the owl in the tree

eyes wide with shock— 

& something else. Each boy

has no shadow, in the firelight, dancing,

untethered. What spell draws me

closer, draws me out 

from my barren hollow?

Turns my feathers into goose-bumped 

skin—sweat-slick—am I dancing now 

too? The air has no sound

but there is music. I am beautifully 

flightless. Our heels grinding 

into cold earth.

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Grant Chemidlin is a queer poet living in Los Angeles. He is the author of What We Lost in the Swamp (Central Avenue Publishing, 2023), a finalist for the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. Recent work has appeared in Palette Poetry, Quarterly West, Tupelo Quarterly, and Atlanta Review, among others.