Exhibit in the Spellbound exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
They say you are in here,
sealed into this glass flask,
which is lined with silver as coffins
are lined with lead, the curve
of it shining smugly as a bulb,
a plug of red wax stopping the narrow neck.
If so, you are shrunken,
grown small, like a child’s fist,
and you dry and crouch
inside that airless globe,
your head drawn down to your knees,
a parchment lady.
I wonder how you got small
and how you got in,
whether someone drew you and lured you,
as wasps are drawn
by a smear of jam
congealing in a jar,
or whether you chose
to shrink yourself, to crawl in
the way that cats crawl off
to die unseen,
their instinct to be secret overruling
any desire for comfort or assistance.
Flask Said To Contain A Witch by Kitty Coles | Sandalwood Poetry Reed Diffuser
$20.00Price
