Haunted Passages: Michael Sikkema
Mud Witch
this pit’s everything a mouth of sky
Mud Witch dreams me in her teeth
it all vibrates wrong when the pain stops
this pit’s everything gathers worms
moles beetles so I don’t starve I cup
mud it all started with the sinkholes
we lost the whole golf course Mud Witch
grabs the rope over my pit leans out
grips her mound with one hand and pisses
down on me the stars change faster than
they should she says a pit’s a walking
tunnel everything a mouth
I thought Mud Witch’s hands around
my throat while I had to milk her
into a half gallon mason jar stars so fast
it all vibrates wrong the milk greenish
howling dogs collapse the distance
it all started with the sinkholes the baptist
church was gone this pit’s birthing me
I guess I could make a little nest to fuck
some leaves I have to bleed
some more she drops in
a rake head I press it to my chest and drag
she says the pit’s just walking
I lick the shadow of the rope she thinks
me with her teeth faster stars I hear with
the dogs sucking down into the mud
Mud Witch names me as the sun rises
names me cup-spit rat-fish waste-face
throws in a ladder to set me free maybe
now that I have a name I step up
the rung breaks it turns to mud
the rung’s on fire gone it turns to water
the rung grows a mouth and names me back
it takes all day it all started with a
tunnel that fell on the golf course near
the baptist church I thought her hands
gripping my spine planting me
she leans out and waters me in my pit
I’m born when she picks me my legs have
fused gelatinous skin my feet a spike
my spine cracks I’m a scorpion I sting myself
in the back of the head if Mud Witch
would toss in a fresh friend
I’d have somewhere to keep my songs
moles worms a shrew the worms are
the worms are barking when the rain cleans
me too far Mud Witch throws in rocks throws
in burlap doll parts that erase my body as
they land in the pit hands feet legs splash in
the mud-suck and I’m mostly
gone floating voice it all started when I had
to bleed more in the baptist church
the walking tunnel made a little nest
a mouth of sky is everything a pit a half
gallon mason jar thinks me in her thighs
it all started with
the sinkholes I was going to get
to the bottom of it now here I am in
full dark Mud Witch tossed down her
eyeball the left one I think it burst into flames
shed light on a tunnel forming right
beside me I took two steps towards
it and saw platters of food inside
fried chicken fresh fruit jugs
of water my ankles
exploded tiny bits of bone everywhere
pain like air around me I collapsed
the tunnel was gone then I looked back
at Mud Witch’s eye still glowing it had
turned into a silver sphere it split open
and out came hundreds of tiny Mud Witches
they crawled all over me biting pinching
hissing singing I tossed one into my mouth
felt the bones crack and everything went
white I was sitting at my breakfast table
clean dry hungry my kids were playing
cars and dolls and stuffies I had coffee
hot still in the blue mug a plate of eggs
and bacon steaming the light outside
pure summer I grabbed a handful of eggs
shoved them in my mouth got under
the table hugged my daughter Anna but
she got smaller as my arms tightened
she turned into a grasshopper smaller than
a penny she jumped into
the keyhole of the front
door I chased after opened the door
and it all started with the sinkholes
this walking pit fell on everyone I had
to eat them I’m all that’s left Mud Witch
comes to the edge again fucks herself with
a femur human probably O’Connor
the hardware guy she bled into my pit
I remember to make the roses grow the roses
hundreds of colors they covered me thorns
ripping as they grew filled the pit blocked
the light and Mud Witch whistled them into
snakes cackled as I screamed then
they were skins just skins their bellies covered
in words a list of everyone I’d ever hurt
this pit’s everything it started growing in
the baptist church when we lost the golf course
that walking tunnel ate a lot of people
for a long time a thick nothingness
having grown used to formlessness I woke
to Mud Witch sitting in a chair across from
me her feet up on a wooden stool her
skirt hiked up high and one
of her legs was a huge dildo bulging rubber
veins I was tied to my chair with
someone’s tendons I was so thirsty it
started raining and I opened my mouth leaned
back Mud Witch
stood then grabbed my hair pulled my
head back and spat into my mouth “every
little bit helps,” she said for a while I could
see through crows so I did I couldn’t
steer we flew out over top of my
pit in loops tree tops I could see the city in
the distance just lights really I looked
down or the crow did I saw rows and rows
of pits like mine Mud Witch was standing
over every one these were houses once
an ice cream place a liquer store that
hole was a coffee shop that one a muffler
place each pit had someone inside I thought
I’d eaten them all when the food ran
out after I had the fevers it’s hard to
remember we all just did what we
had to it started with the sinkholes
I was counting frogs for the state the survey
the ground shook the whole golf course
caved I was safe on the edge I saw all
the bones the bodies from before the stories
were true I learned the mass grave
was real from my crow I saw the bones
fuse and flesh out all of them into one
body into Mud Witch the size of a field
some flowers a tree growing through then
another she opened her mouth and shouted
a tunnel into the cloud cover it twisted
through itself pulled in water and trout from
the stream to the south pulled in burning
garbage from someone’s backyard in
the north the shingles of a house a mile
east a small flock of wild turkeys from
the west it all twisted and spun turned into
a dull light fell down into her mouth
her arms fused to her sides legs fused together
her whole body sealed over with scales except
her head Mud Witch’s head with the body
of a snake now 300 yards long going slowly
towards the lake then finally circling it finally
submerging she inched across her eyes
skin dulled she scraped her skin on
the rocks her face slowly pushed through her face
split down the middle drug her body
behind it she pulled all the way through her
old skin inside out behind her all the birds
fell from the sky mine too I woke up in the pit
it all started in the pit here where I’m becoming
the fevers help it all gets clearer I can hear
their blood at all the pulse points throat’s the easiest
you’ll never starve if your mouth reaches some
part of your body but the others they taste better
it all started at the golf course I was safe
just fine then I woke up with the fevers so thirsty
I saw those kids all those throats to be fair one
called me zombie weeks ago it was already happening
right around the time of the sinkholes they called
me zombie then their little throats burst I burst
their little throats for christ sakes we eat
the brain last you can’t bite through a skull
I wasn’t a zombie just had the fevers I was counting
frogs thirsty for weeks I woke up in the pit
splayed out tied to stakes in the ground
Mud Witch was standing over me I could hear
the blood in her throat things vibrate right
when I’m fed on time I started eating the others
doing the world a favor those kids
were the first normal ones then I was in the pit
Mud Witch has built a door up top it’s dark all
the time time changed I guess the speed mostly
must be night now stars falling no
fireflies land on my ribs burn through
embers maybe it hurts
right and makes these little tunnels I pull away
the meat the rib bones and see a pair
of wings hanging inside me I try to fly
but they just rattle and buzz till the crows come
confuse them for food and pick them clean
Michael Sikkema is the author of books, chapbooks, and multiple collaborations all knowable through search engines. He hopes you ask your library to add them to their collection. His current dream is to collaborate with an illustrator on a graphic novel project. He enjoys correspondence at Michael.sikkema@gmail.com.
Image: swampwitch.bandcamp.com
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