Death-masks, what else can witches
Wear on the bus?

Then I found out that I, like others of my kind, might
Be an actual witch: Simon from Rochester,
Jaime from Madrid, Fabio from Turin;

Such shamans through the veil shimmered

Suddenly, born suddenly into a body that
Your body is not your body.

Dear semi-human figures now in museums,
Their describing words a fallacy.

Yet – and this is written –
Pins will be poked into my flesh until flesh feels
Like a body again. It will walk jerkily
Into the bus, it will

See right through the
Eye-holes. It will see.

Andrew F Giles has work in many journals and anthologies. His first novel, Transhumance (Rebel Satori Press/Queer Space), is out now.