Kristin LaTour

LITTLE WITCH

She can control the wind if she stands on the porch
Or cement steps leading to a house's back door,
Holding her arms aloft and squinting her eyes.
Mostly she likes the air to be still, barely rustling.
Empty notebooks have demons, so she chooses
Spiral bound with a blue cover, several pages filled
With scribbles in red crayon and the hard-pressed
handwriting of small girls learning penmanship.
These are the spells that send small poltergeists
Scrambling. She curses her siblings with their dirt
Filled ears and crusted mouths. She blesses her father
Who leaves more often than he returns and scolds
Her mother when her belly swells again. She can see
Her future, her hair turning to Twizzlers everyone will want
To pull from her head and her words precious as a trinket box
Hidden under a bed full of broken bits of jewelry and one tiny
Barbie shoe, a blue marble. People will want to look
Into her mouth. She already plans to hide in a corn crib
And live like a cat. Listen. She's practicing her purr.

Kristin LaTour's most recent chapbook is Agoraphobia, from Dancing Girl Press (2013), as well as two others: Blood (Naked Mannequin Press 2009) and Town Limits (Pudding House Press 2007). Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Fifth Wednesday, Cider Press, After Hours, dirtcakes, qarrstiluni, and The Adroit Journal. She teaches at Joliet Jr. College and lives in Aurora, IL with her writer husband, a lovebird, and two dogitos.