Modern Witches, version 4

Do witches burn the way they used to?
I understand they used to swim – or float, at least –
when everybody else went straight to the slimy bottom
and sat there, bubbles rising from the mouth and nostrils
until there wasn’t any more air to send back to air.

Do witches burn the way they used to?
When passions got God’s goat and love’s fire
curled his heavenly lip with infinite disgust,
did they burn more fiercely then in the face of that cold regard?
And for whom did they burn?

Do witches burn the way they used to?
Time was you’d look to the sky and see a body –
spread arms ending in spread fingers.
robes flapping about the torso like flames –
and you’d think, “It’s an angel!”
Unless it was a woman, then, “Witch!”
What do people decide in such a situation these days?

Do witches burn the way they used to?
Tied to a post in the town square?
Was it ever true that the fire that ate the body
cleansed the soul, too? The witch had to be killed,
the burning was a favor. God would take a soul a fire
had stripped of sin, some said.