Red Haired Witch of Oscar Wilde’s The Fisherman and His Soul

(With love to Elisheva for a story on a summer night, a mosquito candle in a jar, and falling asleep on the grass.)

I, witch wound with copper hair
and snake eye sea green comb
I, witch wombed in brackish caves
where round ankles world wrapped
I lack one thing to my axle feet:

He, loving the spindrift mergirl
asks mirk witchery of me
He, heaved to his lovelorn mergirl
would shed all his soul by me
He, seeing only the mergirl
looks only for her from me.

Strands to the net that you caught her in,
Strands to the witching net you seek,
Strands, dark strands, I spread out for thee.