February 23, 2025The Word of the Day Is Widdershins
which sounds fun and elfin, like that
dance that leprechauns do, hobnail boots
clicking with glee or maybe something a
confused rabbit in coattails might say
when he’s lost his way: Aw, widdershins,
as he lights his adorable pipe and
adjusts his widdle wireframe glasses but
like everything lately that arrives in my inbox
or crosses my screen it’s not cute at all,
just a twee way to say backwards, not right:
in a direction contrary to the sun’s course,
considered unlucky; counterclockwise like
every day of this cursed year.
I want it to be a magic word I can say three times
and focus my rage to reset the course:
widdershins, widdershins, widdershins but
all it summons is my neighbor saying
come on, it was just a Roman salute or a video
of the ladies I used to see at school dropoff or
softball games singing God Bless America in
red-white-and-blue shirts and hats that ends
with their right arms in the air, giggling and
yet another think piece that asks mildly if we really
saw what we saw: that arm raised like a dark minute hand
that drags us fucking widdershins,
down into a warren we dug so long ago
we forgot how deep it ran beneath us.
from Poets Respond