DISAPPEARING ACT

Go ahead,

dash the potions

from the magician’s human hands, clip

memory from owl’s broken wing.

For every part you aim to erase

the greater absence occurs in you.

Think twice, my little one,

before you redact the name 

of the devil who wronged you

from the jaundiced pages

of the grand grimoire –

before you give the henchman 

the nod. Betrayer or not,

if they drop

through the gallows’ floor

you drop with them.