Samantha could make Darrin’s sandwich
without using her hands. A skilled witch
can wiggle her nose without touching it,
snap her fingers to teleport to the Salem Witch
Trials where her glorious foremothers
were once burned for black magic. Switch
the channel, and The Wizard of Oz
shows witches pitted against witches.
Victor Fleming, known as a “man’s director,”
brought high-femme Glinda the Good Witch
to outsmart the Wicked Witch of the West.
Where had all the warlocks gone? Switch
the lights on and off fast, and Hocus Pocus
loses Disney 16 million on three single witches,
each unapologetically wicked. Then Sabrina,
cat, and aunts cast small-screen spells, which
out Jerry Springer as a witch himself. Who knew
the Spellmans would uncover Reality TV’s Man-Witch?
Miss Evangeline Price helped defeat the Nazis,
emboldened by a correspondence course in witch-
war tactics and a magic bed. Even the Olsen twins
brought double trouble to a boil as PG witchlings.
Roseanne Barr flew over Madison Square Garden
before melting at the hands of a ginghamed non-witch.
Shakespeare’s Hecate, leader of her coven,
sent Endora forward in time, bejeweled and bewitching,
the mother-in-law who knew Samantha married down.
Life on Morning Glory Circle could make anyone twitch—
that humdrum green carpet and yellow ashtray,
that husband who couldn’t even make his own sandwich.
Ed. note: Pictured above is Elizabeth Montgomery, who played Samantha in the TV series Bewitched.