Take hungry grins full of spittle
place sticky, beating hearts in the middle
and twine with salt and pepper hair
through endless days and nights laid bare
Add pebble, bone, root and feather
then wrap in tales and bind together
Wipe your brow and bow your head
spill blood upon the marriage bed
Now cross yourself – once, twice, thrice
and you become the sacrifice
This is for the Imaginary Garden for Real Toads where we were challenged to write a charm in ten lines or less.
In Other Words 
Wow! This is quite a charm, Mary. I have a few salt and pepper strands myself.. so it really hit home.
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What a charm.. the sacrifice in the end, I was not really prepared for that… Like an ättestupa… chilling
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Like Bjorn, I was also taken aback by the sacrifice. Eerie charm.
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How else to become a matriarch without the grey, and blood? The birdlike efficiency of this nested charm is wonderful — honed by millions of years of instinct, thousands of nights of mothering. Excellent.
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wow, Mary, as I once upon a time, a long time ago,used to say “that is heavy”
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Ah Mary–you nailed it. Especially love these lines–a perfect description: “Add pebble, bone, root and feather/ then wrap in tales and bind together.”
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Love the rhyme in this, and the creepy feeling of being out in a witche’s wood while also being in midst of the day-to-day motions of motherhood, marriage — yes, the sacrifices of which can be felt acutely by those who’ve been there. Powerful. Thanks for sharing.
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Wow, becoming the sacrifice. There was such a lust in the past to attend or see evidence of the marriage consummation. This is perfect for it!
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I loved this, and to me it read like the sacrifice mothers make raising their young……….
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Perfect, Mary. I had a feeling that some being was in the making, possibly a father figure. It hit me pretty hard, the poet’s role for the creation here.
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