The Cemetery At Salem

In Salem, Massachusetts there is a small
cemetery the size of a room of bad memories

It is on Charter Street, next to the Witch
Trials Memorial, the convicted witches

Do not lie here, they are buried in unmarked
graves near where they were hanged

These witches convicted, not of flying
on broomsticks or boiling pots of potions

They didn’t turn children into cats
or husbands into dogs or horses

They didn’t snip toads legs to conjure monsters
or leave snakes in someone’s bed

They were hanged and buried
though the wind whispered their innocence

It was a wrong thought, a scared jury, a rabid judge,
a lying witness or two that convicted them

Left them with no tombstones, with no names
and no dates of birth and death, yet they live

Boy With Balloon

Observe the man in the yellow straw hat
He is not connected to the boy
with the blue balloon
who is connected to the woman
in the white shorts

The boy’s balloon will soon slip
from his hand
the way he will slip from his mother

If there is a message in the balloon
someone will find it after a west wind
carries across an ocean of loneliness

The someone will read it and wonder
about the sender
or why it was discarded

The man in the yellow straw hat
has observed the boy, his mother
he has created the scenario
yet he cannot finish the story
which has no ending

Zvi A. Sesling has published in numerous magazines and won several prizes. He edits Muddy River Poetry Review and publishes Muddy River Books. He authored King of the Jungle (Ibbetson Street Press, 2010) and a chapbook Across Stones of Bad Dreams (Cervena Barva, 2011). His next full length volume, Fire Tongue, is due from Cervena Barva Press.