The people here do gossip
For the Witch who lives on dead-end street
They whisper when she passes and they shudder when she sighs,
because they know the truth.
That long ago I killed a man
His battered blood was on my hands
I took a knife and carved the organs
From his beaten chest.
His shallow breathing did depart
Into my hands did go his heart
It rests now as a pendant
On my dull and heathen bones.
From his shining golden head
I wove the promises of the dead
I made fine hats and pretty rugs
And sold them in the market-town.
From the sinews of his flesh
I made a sort of empty-nest
I lured all the sparrows here
To croon in the nest of the man-flesh.
From the veins I poured his blood
Into vials like a flood
I corked the bottles good and hard
And sold his blood as wine in-town.
His bright blue eyes I took for jelly
For sweet new eyes are good for selling:
Is that jam as sweet, as sweet
As his living eyes on my body?
Oh….
Long ago, I killed a man
His battered blood was on my hands
I took a knife and carved the organs
From his beaten chest.
His lips I left alone, they say
Their brows heavy with dismay:
Why would she only leave the lips?
Why the too-thin of his lips?
Could she taste his kisses
From their night-meets in the moon?
But they are fools.
I left his lips, his lips, his lips
His lips I left untouched
To remind us all, my loves
That secrets have their cost in blood,
That dead men do not lie.
That dead men do not lie.
That dead man broke my heart, they say:
On that, they are correct.
He took my heart and I took his
His bloody, beaten heart:
It rests now as a pendant
On my dull and heathen bones….
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