My Mother placed a glass of water
by my bed every night
before I went to sleep.

I was forbidden
to drink it
“It serves another purpose.” she would say.

This happened every day until, once,
the glass sat, half evaporated, with bubbles
clung to its ribs, and my mother panicked.

She explained the magick
as best she could to a child,
but forgot that children know the art well.

She told an Aesopian  story
of hurt and malice as weapons.
How they could be given life.

The water, she said, was a bridge.
One that could not be crossed
by the ghosts that were drawn to me in my sleep.

She warned me not to travel when I slept.
To stay away from those unfamiliar places in my dreams,
she said that they would wait for me in those nooks.

The morning she found the tumbler,
half full, me sweating, beads of glass,
she moved my bed,

told me that it might be a shade,
that the room was thick with rancor
and someone might playing with conjury.

She clipped a tuft of hair from my head
burned it, stinking between her fingers
and dropped it into what was left of the water.

“Magick is old,” she’d say,
“young souls appeal most
To strong spells and old ghosts.”