Baba Yaga Duet

 

Baba Yaga

My daughter when you were small

How I wanted to eat you.

Cast off flesh of my flesh

I wanted to keep you in me,

Digest my fear of losing you as I swallowed

You whole, plumped and roasted.

Can you forgive the way I fretted over the oven

And took the measure of your

Wrists with my worried fingers?

 

Skillful, you eluded me.

Growing stalk thin and green.

The lilac scent of your skin brings tears.

Candle stubs in your pockets, I know

You are anxiously waiting

For your life to begin.

For the man on whose shoulder you will drip tallow,

For the journey you are willing to make

To free yourself and him

From those like me, brutal in our bodies.

 

We walk out together and I grown old

No longer hide my yellowed tusks.

Men stare at you as we pass and

I smell the familiar hunger.

Their glances wicked knives

Slicing the perfumed curves of your body.

Their eyes slide off your shoulder and catch

Mine staring back, razor–edged and spiteful.

My grizzled chin lifts, claws unfurling.

Lips ashen, they step away.

 

They let us pass knowing

They are not the ones to take you

                                                  --- Midori Snyder

Baba Yaga's Daughter

Are you hungry, Old Woman?

Let me make you something tender

While you sit in your little cottage.

You stay here and I'll take your silver

and your wrinkled advice

to market.

 

I will walk through thicket and thorn

And bleed the trail from my mortal feet.

I will capture the fox and

steal his trickery.

No doubt he will capture me back,

but I'll negotiate him, Old Woman,

and we'll fix ourselves an understanding.

 

I will sing to myself the comfort

you taught me how to procure.

I will forget the words and decide to

sing another language.

When I reach the market,

the foreigners will find

my new tongue attractive.

They will certainly give me a

good deal then, Old Woman!

They will rush to bandage my feet

and inspect other scars.

I will want to ask them

to help carry home your meal,

But I will be too wise.

 

Are you still hungry, Old Woman?

Are you rocking on your chicken claws

and picking at your iron teeth?

Well, you will have to wait some more.

You see, I want to make for you the

sweetest tastes (of course)

and beyond the market, Old Woman,

on blue sand that meets milk white water,

I see strange, handsome fish.

I am going just a little farther from your cottage.

After all, you have the bones to nibble

while I am away.

Suck on them hard and inventory

the flavors that linger.

Spin your fingers around a femur

stuffed with marrow

and quench your idol, rusting fetish

while I am away.

It should still be savory in my absence.

 

Old Woman! You are wasting away!

Those eyes that once crackled bright

in your little cottage

seem opal cold through aged, pursed lids.

I will warm you with a dinner and

spiced herbal cider.

Won't you be stunned to see,

in your weakened state, Old Woman,

that I have brought more than fish!

I will teach you, now that you have

burned your old recipes,

the new ones I remedied.

And I will uncover the hidden plants

I've stashed in my hair,

the worlds I have in my mouth,

the tattoos woven in my skin

and the sky I discovered in my breast.

 

Old Woman, this will surely be your

finest meal.

                                               ---Taiko Haessler

 

"Baba Yaga" copyright © 2001 by Midori Snyder. "Baba Yaga's Daughter" copyright © 2004 by Taiko Haessler. Both poems first appeared in previous issues of the Journal of Mythic Arts. The poems may not be reproduced in any form without the authors' express written permission.