When Sinatra sang it, I doubt he or
Coleman and Leigh knew about Susannah
Martin hanging there, falsely condemned for
“sundry acts,” turd bits falling like manna
from under her skirt to the Salem ground
when her neck broke, unnerving all muscles
two hundred-sixty years earlier, bound
hands twitching briefly, as in a tussle
with air over some last thought. Ol’ Blue Eyes
was probably seeing Ava’s soft smile
rather than Susannah’s gallows grin. Wise
men knew to slip poppets in her home while
she strolled in the woods, used as evidence,
with claims she’d also raised a ghost’s presence.
Roger Armbrust
June 16, 2001
