Uncle Trog’s Terrible Confession

It is getting dark

and in the north are woods

where I used to take

my children on walks

when I was a professor

who unscrewed carefully

ancient cedar boxes

and showed the interiors

to students and cursed them

forever with dark magic.

In the center of the woods

of course is the house

of a witch who was

never born and can never die.

One snowy evening,

my children and I

became stranded there.

The witch watched us

like a large black spider

as we warmed ourselves

by her fireplace.

We fell asleep.

When we woke, it was spring,

and when we opened our eyes

we saw only a meadow

carpeted with the lavender

mist of bluebells.