After Suspiria, 1977 version

Run your fingers along
the arsenic-flocked
wallpaper. 

Heavy in the labyrinth of
Mysteries, you come
to do the work

of a god you don’t
believe in. Red paint for

blood, Art Deco swirls.

Witchfinder ballerina.
Witchfinder Susie.

They can smell the
ersatz holiness on your

skin. 

But that won’t stop you

Sarah Nichols lives and writes in Connecticut. She is the author of eight chapbooks, including She May Be a Saint (Porkbelly Press, 2019) and Dreamland for Keeps (Porkbelly, 2018.) Her poems and essays can also be found in Ghost City Review, Isacoustic, and Five:2:One Magazine.