“Don’t call me Grandma
when I’m in here
call me old witch Eva”—
             that always stopped us
on the threshold,
words whistling out into breath,
we’d watch
a moment longer,
she’d move
between lumps of clay,
a half-formed pot on a wheel,
hair catching light
through a dusty window—
“Grandma,”
             we’d say,
“Don’t call me Grandma
when I’m in here!”

“Old witch Eva,
can I come in?
Can I make something too?”
Magic words,
we’d pass that magic line
where house crossed into shed
and grandmas into witches.
Pressing our own cold lumps of clay
into clumsy teapots and lopsided animals,
we’d watch her shift
across the room, her woolly hair
bunned up or streaming down,
a sudden glance, a little stare,
she still looked like Grandma
but you couldn’t be sure—
Was that a broomstick in the corner?
An owl perched on her chair?

She’d whisk around and lift her arms
to make us shriek,
then settle to her work—
the rhythmic squeak
of a potter’s wheel,
the whisper of slurry
on hands throwing clay
and behind her back,
the night-bird, startled from sleep
stretches up on its chair
and begins to beat its wings.