My Little Green Secret
My Little Green Secret
An English-style vial of green pigment
Hides inside my piano, ghostly as
Moon-silvered glass, opal-pale like some witch-
Friendly potion—a Victorian skull
Grins back, mercury-soaked top hat
Askew its bone-vanilla head
Within I pretend are witch’s reagents:
Storm-purpled nightshade, old monkshood, wolf’s bane—
Hecate’s Queen of all Poisons—
Blood-red bloodroot juice –pudding form–
Milk-silky yellow bell, unpasteurized,
Flakes of witch-curled wormwood bark –cinnamon–
And sprinkles of stone-crushed yew berry seeds
Its fragrance stings like a necromantic
Effluvium of root-twisted decay
But within this oak-corked vial –age-hazed–
Lies no fleurs du mal,
No floral bouquet from skeletal leaves
And no cauldron-boiled witchcraft scheme—
But instead, the unhallowed science
Of arsenic-laced Emerald Green
Her opulent walls are papered with it
The mid-winter damp moistens its poison
Yet, when finely ground, verdigris pigment
Oven-baked in rustic copper
Becomes an odorless, paste-like glaze:
A cosmetic-inspired Paris Green—
My very own inheritance powder
Even better for witch-fever symptoms
Her oozing sores have confounded doctors for months
And though vividly delicious
On Victorian-papered walls
—Patterns of bats –spectral-green–, skeleton-
Fingered wings, gossamer-wisped veins, sinewed
Demon flesh, diffused and twisted through miles
Of pale-purpling opium flowers—
It too can be used for painted smiles
And smoke-inspired eyeshadow dyes
Go on, my darling, smudge a little more
–Just a little more–
To conceal your cancered lips and sleep-deprived eyes.
† Featured as one of the Top 3 Poems in the Horror Writers Association’s (HWA) Poetry Showcase 2017: http://horror.org/2017-hwa-poetry-showcase-featured-poems/
‡ Nominated for a Rhysling Award 2018.
Illustration to “My Little Green Secret”, available in A Ride Through Faerie & Other Poems (2021) by Clay Franklin Johnson, published by Gothic Keats Press