CRUELLA by Bruce Hodder

Some thought the care home must be cursed.

Nothing good had ever happened there.

One story said the home was built

on the ploughed-in bodies of a witches' coven.

I remember a day when it was really quiet,

like in the moments after a bomb goes off,

just before the screaming and the running start.

Knowing what was missing, my friend Al asked,

'Where’s Cruella? Is she not in today?'

Cruella was the boss. She was always shouting,

always stomping up and down the corridors

in her big brown boots, demanding things were done

her way, and straight away, or there’d be hell.

Her voice was like the shriek of a dentist's drill.

I said, ‘I bet she's in her attic, mate,

hanging from the rafters upside-down

being fed baby rabbits by her husband Burt.'

You would need to have been close to feel the chill

of the cold black midnight of her undead heart.

Then you'd know how plausible my answer was,

and not sexist in the least bit, like it seemed.

Bruce Hodder lives with his wife Michelle in Northampton, England, the most statistically average town in the UK. He has been published in many magazines and online, most recently in ‘Winedrunk Sidewalk’, ‘Under the Bleachers’ and ‘The Rye Whiskey Review’.