Sexton

Always in black-and-white, she sits,
smoking a cigarette, one leg protruding
as if a sculptor caught motion, and fits
a chisel to a thigh. Both grave-digging
and bell-ringing make up the sexton’s life.
But wrongly called both succubus and wife.
 
She would have lit up Salem like a knife
revealed by moonlight in the house.
 
Misogynistic fantasies crowd on
the Massachusetts tomb; a mouse  
dries out upon its palindrome, the sun
revolving ‘round the name RAT’S STAR.
Where need is never quite belief, come far
but never quite enough. She starts the car.