Cushag

Cushag is a word we know,
the one we use.
There are others:
seagrum and stammerwort, or so
my book says,
mentioning also that these stiff stems
were ridden by witches
in their nightly alarums.

Inimical to horses,
but not, as stammerwort
suggests, without its uses;
of seagrum’s virtues,
known perhaps to those enchantresses,
there is no report.

David Callin lives in what he likes to call the Deep South of the Kingdom of the Isles. On a clear day he can see almost everything. He has had poems in The Journal, Envoi, Cake and Prole, among others, and also online in Snakeskin, Ink, Sweat & Tears and Antiphon.