Witches in stories catch neighborhood strays
and cackle while dreaming up terrible ways
to mistreat ’em.
Witches in stories fly around on their brooms.
They lure wicked children to gingerbread rooms
and eat ’em.
Witches in stories are skinny and mean.
Their faces are ugly; their skin is all green
and warty.
Witches survive on the souls that they’ve plundered.
They hide out in forests and live to a hundred
and forty.
They’re at their most happy when others are not,
singing off-key while they circle a pot
in slow motion.
Witches in stories like horrible things:
gathering toad’s blood and ladybug wings
for a potion.
Mrs. McFleatcher,
our substitute teacher,
is terribly kind.
She is sweet and refined,
and she’s pretty and funny and tall,
and her skin is not green, not at all.
Her singing voice is lovely and rich—
each day she leads chorus precisely on pitch—
and yet
I bet
she’s a witch.