An Open Letter to Baba Yaga

I heard you call my name and so here I come, lost and found again.

I come barefoot into the forest, 

seeking the dark of trees beyond lamp posts, 

seeking the wet density, the pungency, the hollow logs.

I come in a blood stained dress, bramble torn and smelling of the animal inside me.

I am listening for your vulture call, 

for the sound of cracking bones, of boiling fat, 

I come hungry and mostly unafraid

though shivers run my spine.

I would climb inside your cauldron, 

I would be your winter soup, your midnight snack, your final meat.

I hear you call out from those forgotten places, 

from the choose your own adventure gone awry, 

screeching and clawing at the library door. 

At first I thought it was our cat gone into heat, 

at first I thought it was the wolf come to blow blow blow my house down

at first I was sure I heard uneven footsteps just beyond the gate

But then I heard my name amidst the howling, amidst the thunderstorm of shattered glass.

and then my egg tooth began to chatter, to gnaw my knucklebone

and then my skin began to crawl

into the twilight, into the compost pile

into every name that we have for fecundity

I felt the center of me blush, and rush to meet the sea.

Of course they had warned me against you

with the tallest tales of stolen simmered children

lost to the hungry hearth of the chicken footed house

They told me the dew covered dawn was your youngest son and servant

and the dusk your first born, dark and strong

how they carry the faces of day on horseback

how your every wish is their only command

how they are the ones who know the song to make your house stand still long enough to come in

or get out

and then they lower their voices

and glancing over their shoulder

they tell me how

your tongue is a snake

how your flying grinds bones into meal

how your bloody mouth never stops screaming the death of the world

how all the darkest shadows do your bidding

alas they never told me that your bidding 

was for the rising stars to keep up with their dancing,

for night to always turn back into day

they never told me that the death you offer

brings all the world to life again

and spins a web of story fine

into which at our best we become woven

I heard you call my name and so here I come, lost and found again…