on trial for witchcraft

there is a town that weighs

the mayor annually, publicly, to check

if he spends their taxes

on gluttony, they should

weigh his wife as well—the Wife

of Bath consumed five

husbands, her hunger,

sexual, seeks a sixth—surely she weighs

as much as a duck

walking on water, or a log, a wart, a witch,

full of air, light as feathers—she adorns herself

in her late lord’s loot to

heavy herself: rocks, loads of

frocks, cinched together with sin, draped

over her shoulder—women crave

mastery over man, maybe meeting the mayor in marriage

she’d consume him, too, and then

the whole town,

taxes and all