A Poem by Wren Donovan

We burn the witch, the old goat
the little old man of the old year
and our scapegoat carries our sin.
We are blameless now, we are forgiven.
We burn the Other for easy atonement, give over the bad ones
surrender the sorceress, conjurer, evil eye
hand over the misfit, misbegotten, miscreant.
Consensual fire cleans bone to white
and dissolves fleshy folly to ashes
while we sleep gently tucked beneath a blanket of snow
by cool white long slender hands.
Come a cold morning those ashes
will mark each clean brow with grey dust
but tonight we dream the blank white screen
while our shadow selves scream in the bonfire.

Wren Donovan (she/her) writes poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction. Her work is published in The Mark Literary Review and upcoming in Cauldron Anthology and Luna Luna Magazine.  She is also a Tarot reader and meditative dancer who tends to hide in plain sight but likes to wear things that jingle. Wren wanted to be a mermaid when she grew up, but when that didn’t work out she studied literature, Classics, folklore, and psychology at Millsaps College, Chapel Hill, and the University of Southern Mississippi.  She lives in Tennessee among many trees and can be found on Twitter @WrenDonovan.