She Must Be a Witch

For Samantha Stephens

She is shiny
with accomplishment,
easily mobile,
made up and done up
and helped up
and fixed up,
a chapter of an impossible 
story – a mother with
no stains on her shirt,
no dead ends,
no nails chips or
sweater rips or
yogurt drips – and 
sometimes, she can
even wiggle her nose
to make it all go away.

Don’t know that woman.
Never met her. 
Can’t imagine her sweat
or her limbs lank
on the floor at night.

How does it work?
Perhaps she just thinks

  I’ll make it effortless,
silently shaming everyone else,
clean up that mess,
iron that dress,
make more out of less
in the mornings … 

 or she is just following
the story, shaking her perfectly
styled head at 

the mediocrity of assumption, 
the laughable tales that visit us 
after bedtime, glowing so sweetly in 
the quiet of night?

- Sarah Ghoshal

Sarah Ghoshal is a writer, professor, mom, wife, feminist, binder, runner, and persister. Her work can be found in Reunion: The Dallas Review, Cream City Review, The Moon Magazine, Whale Road Review, and Mom Egg Review, among others. She is a Best of the Net nominee and has two chapbooks, 'Changing the Grid' and 'The Pine Tree Experiment.' She lives in New Jersey.