susanna cox & the smoke

driving home, i mistake the
burn piles for fallen airplanes,
columns of smoke billowing from behind
silos & red barns. they're killing 
susanna cox against next week up
at the fairgrounds. i blame
the fires on her, angels nose-diving
into the Oley countryside. they shatter
just above the clouds from the humidity 
or grief. angels often combust in water.
she's break off the oldest trees at the base 
& tossing them into the flames. 
it's been about 200 years now since
they hung her for the first time.
what is history but a series of 
trials & juries over vulnerable bodies?
they're summoning me to the stand & i
plead guilty because i already now
they need girls to keep the first going. 
i see her on the side of the road,
she nods because she knows she can 
trust me. she's holding an armful
of hay like an infant. they killed
her for murdering her newborn. 
illegitimate: unlawful, not in accordance
or acceptance-- what kind of body 
can be born with the law wringing 
its neck? i sometimes wake
up with course thread around my throat,
i cut it off with a scissors i keep by
my bedside. i'm telling you this because 
i trust you. if you find me from the ceiling
know there was a due process know
that there was a verdict. at the fairgrounds 
she crouches down in the hay maze looking for him.
She whistles & doesn't know what to
call a boy with no name. rustling
the hay she names him after the sound.
i help her search even though i know
he's not there. they used his body as 
a brick a long time ago for the pavillion
where they're reenacting her trial again.
i'm 15 & were skewering the ox. i'm in
the bonnet & long red dress. 
it's body becomes black & chard from 
the coal under its hooves. it was dead when
it arrived but sometimes i still 
think i see it shake it's head-- blow smoke
from its nostrils. that was the first
time i saw susanna cox. she took a pocket
knife out to cut slivers of meat off
the animal's shoulder. i never told on her.
she's cutting off her hair & 
watching each strand contort
in the fire. i ask her what she's doing so 
far from the fairgrounds today & she
says that this year she doesn't want
to watch them hang her, not again.
one too many times. i take a handful of
hay from her & rustle it. the boy wriggles from 
the earth like a toad. he has a book of matches
in his teeth. his mother strikes one
just to watch it smolder & blow out.