Possessed

Possessed

Summoning her newly-acquired league of demons
to put her foes in their place, curse words poured
from her mouth. A cost not in dollars but in souls,
where people stand around and swap stories
of the recently departed.

How she worked the typing pool in DC
after high school. The story where she met
JFK's secretary, learned he liked Cuban cigars,
despite the embargo he signed into law.
At times, he didn't bother with a match,
but let them hang limp from his mouth,
sucking the flavor from hand-rolled tobacco leaves.

But was she dead? The thrashing in the back
of the hearse suggested otherwise. A loss
of control on the situation. How the pastor
just ignored the bits of smoke and screams.
In the words of not a single child, she was
too much alive to stay dead for very long.