Dumbstruck, mouth open, eyes unblinking and wide, 
I watched a shape rise from the smoldering ashes, 
first a wisp, indistinct and transparent, like vapor, 
then rapidly growing more substantial, 
arms, legs, torso, a flowing head of hair, then a face,
until finally, in the ashes, 
stood a young woman of about nineteen years. 
With what woe she looked around the square. 
Her gaze lingered on the single eye. 
She shook her head as if in sorrowful regret.
Then she fixed her eyes on me.  

I was speechless. 
Who was she?
Did she read my thoughts? 

I am the swift water into which they threw my ashes. 
I am the hammer that pounded my bones. 
I am the consuming fire that ate my flesh, 
the choking smoke that filled my lungs. 
I am the virgin warrior of men’s dreams. 
I am their fantasy of womanhood. 
I am visionary or martyr. 
I ride a white horse or a black. 
In a cathedral I kneel in prayer, 
a shaft of light illuminating my pure face.
I swing a mighty sword, leap trenches 
or scale high city walls. 
I wear armor or peasant woman’s clothes. 
I have short hair, long hair, wavey hair, straight hair. 
I am slender child. 
I am curvaceous woman.
My clothes drape or cling.
I wave men onwards in battle.  
I gaze beatifically towards the heavens. 
I am feared, loathed, loved, sanctified. 
Men will remake me again and again, 
recreating me, using me, seeing me 
through the prism of their age and purpose. 
But you, tell me, now, what do you see? 

I see a young woman, bound.
I see the faggots and the flames.
I see the agony and injustice.
I hear the screams.
I see the soldier and the crown 
I see red gowns, purple robes, 
I see cruel faces set as hard as flint
and above all I see the golden eye. 

II 

She looked at me so piercingly 
that I felt I would shrivel 
and I wanted to melt clean away. 

Finally, she spoke. 

Look now! 

She spread out her arms and a globe 
shimmered and floated between her hands.  
On it I saw the blue of the sea, 
the white swirl of clouds 
and rivers like winding sinews. 
I saw light chasing shadow from land.  
I saw creeping darkness following close behind. 
I saw on a darkened land mass 
thousands of pinpoints of light. 

Look closely at the lights.

She placed both index fingers on the place 
where the sparkles of light glinted, 
and as she drew her fingers apart 
a continent leapt close and I saw mountain ranges, 
then rivers came clear, then trees, fields and cattle, 
until finally, into focus came a walled town 
and in the city square the sparkle of light  
became a pole, faggots, fire and a burning woman. 

Did I faint? 
Horror and revulsion overwhelmed me.  
Finally, in agony, I croaked out two words.

How many? 

Ten thousand. Twenty thousand. Maybe more. 
They said we were witches. 
Said we copulated with devils and demons. 
Said we unleashed foul spirits into the world, 
incubi and succubi to infect men’s pure dreams
with erotic thoughts entirely of our making. 
It is the old story. 
They blame us for their lust: 
it is how we dress, how we look, 
the thickness of our hair, 
as if their lust has nothing to do with their desires.
Cover up! Hide away! Be silent! 
Yet they lie in wait for us. 
And they torture us.
They promise they will set us free if we confess.
Then they burn us, scores of thousands of us,  
when, in desperation, we lie to escape the pain. 

Then she laughed a strange laugh, 
part desperation, part lament and part triumph, 
as she began to fade, 
but as she diminished, she spoke 
and spell-bound, I listened to her last words, 
ghostly, ethereal, diminishing, but still clear. 

They are gone forever:
my jailers; my torturers; my abusers; 
those with the pretense of piety; 
those whose desire for my death 
was like a consuming lust; 
those who held gilded office 
and consigned me to the flames;
those for whom others with bowed heads stood aside; 
the sycophants, plotters, schemers,
the stick gatherers, the crowd that watched; 
all gone, gone forever, swept clean away, 
yet I, who they desired to erase,
I have survived, and I live,       
I live, we still live. 

Then she was gone, and all that was left 
was the empty square, the smoldering fire 
and Antoinette, who once again took me by the hand 
and beneath the stars that burned 
like ten thousand, thousand, sparkles of light, 
we rose together into the darkening sky.