Welcome to “Poetry at The Arts Fuse.” A new poem every Thursday

Evening Walk, Late December

–For the City of Salem on its 400^th Anniversary

On a rugged granite bench that holds a tired flower

The letters of Mary Easty’s name glow white

With snow smoothed by wind into the engraving.

A couple speaks Mandarin, then listens

To an audio tour, to voices unattached to bodies

Telling stories this city will forever be known for.

Beyond the wall, the locked Old Burial Point—

Sinners and saints sharing the same ground.

In the empty spirit market, a bored attendant shivers.

Across the alley: the nightmare gallery.

This Christmas, my son gave me a balaclava

To wear as I bike the stinging winter streets.

I worry I’ll be mistaken for a masked agent

The White House sends to terrorize our neighborhoods.

Let no more innocent blood be shed,

Mary wrote in her final days. A plea for reason

That came from knowledge of her own soul.

And it stopped. It did stop.

On the damp brick, rock salt galaxies.

From the Lobster Shanty, someone’s singing

Take a chance on me, while up icy Liberty Street

A tour guide leads his intrepid band.

He sees me walking solitary,

and says, over the clank of the bank’s flagpole,

Stay warm, my friend.

Mary Estey, an ancestor in the poet’s direct line, was put to death in Salem, accused of witchcraft. Her petition to the governor may have helped bring an end to the Witch Trials.

J.D. Scrimgeour is the city of Salem’s inaugural poet laureate. Recent books are Small, Rectangular, Reflected World (Nixes Mate 2025) and Poet in High Street Park: Prose & Poetry for Modern Salem (Loom Press 2026). 

Note: Hey poets! We seek submissions of excellent poetry from across the length and breadth of contemporary poetics. See submission guidelines here. The arbiter of the feature is the magazine’s poetry editor, John Mulrooney.

— Arts Fuse editor Bill Marx