Hellish Nell

     Open my ears, that I may hear
               Voices of truth Thou sendest clear;
     And while the wave notes fall on my ear,
               Everything false will disappear.
                           Spiritualist hymn: Open My Eyes, That I May See, Clara H. Scott, 1895
 
They plead with me to birth their dead for them –
what mother could refuse a sister-mother?
So I allow their soldier-boys to use my voice
to shape their cheery valedictions.
But the mothers, they want to see their angel-boys;
to touch their faces one last crowning time.
 
I must get theatrical, says my spirit guide;
then comes cheesecloth eggwhite ectoplasm
leaking from my breasts; the labour stabs;
the delivering of a shroud into the world.
And their mouths agape like greedy fish,
Is that him? my baby? oh yes they gulp it down!
 
In quiet times, without all eyes on me
I am forced to reconsider what is spirit;
what is nature; I am unsteady with it all.
And so I make a meal of carpet tacks
to weigh me to the floor. I deserve this pain,
for sullying the gift bestowed on me by God.
 
Now dim the lights if you really want a show;
see the candles burning vacancies into my meat.
Does my brashness disturb you?
You would prefer me fey?
Stand back! I might regurgitate all hell
into your choking auditorium!
 
 
     Note: Victoria Helen McCrae Duncan was in 1944, the last person to be imprisoned under the British Witchcraft Act of 1735.
 

Helen Ivory

published in collection, The Anatomical Venus, 2019, Bloodaxe Books,
ISBN 978-1-7803746-9-7