Sorgina

The firewood burned, I tell you no lie,
but she laughed from the navel, from deep down inside.
The pyre still crackles, the witch doesn't weep:
she's got an old book that she promises to keep.

They burned her flesh, but not her grimoire.
From her open mouth comes a funeral choir.
Eyes rolled to white, her face set alight
by that circle that springs from the cursed book's spite
it lights every crack of her second life.

She wears thistles tangled in her hair,
not to ward her off, but because she cares.
For in Basque Country they say, no joke,
the thistle brings the sorgina to yoke.
But the flames already broke her in,
so now the thistles are her kin.
They prick her, yes, but tie her to the clay:
not fully dead, nor flying away.