THE WITCHES LET THEIR CHARMS BE GAZED AT Poem by Pedro Arturo Estrada

To Óscar González
I have seen the smiles
on the drunken faces of the sorceresses on those nights
when the late hours pressed on the bones
and the soul crawled
like an ailing moon.

Young and expert in a centuries-old art,
feverish, vaguely sensual,
they spread their prodigious ointments
- as if caressing a sleeping lover -
on their naked bodies . . .

My heart drank sharing the secret
the dark and magical wine
of a new madness.