Baba Yaga

by Midori Snyder

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