I did another "revision" of "I Follow (2)" and this is what spun off of that.
"Baba-Yaga!" they scream, but she will not let them go, her breakfast, lunch and dinner. To dine on a child's flesh and bones. I prefer TV dinners, if asked. But that's neither here nor there. Her house on chicken legs, walking through the forest like some Nightmare Coupe de Ville, smoke spilling out of the chimney with wings, perhaps, flapping on the sides. Let them go! In Hungarian folk tales they don't get away, but are eaten. When the part-chicken, part-house settles a fence surrounds it. Not a white-picket fence, that's another fancy, but skulls on staves with candles glowing through the eye sockets. We can blame the decorator. We must. This crone, goddess, witch with an insatiable appetite. I know her well, now. As if we dined together. Me and my Banquet fried chicken, picking at the crust. Her gnawing on a meaty thigh bone. I've said enough. Forgive me. It's just that on the way home, in the path, tracks from a large bird.
October 15, 2008
© Anne Westlund
Poetry by Anne Westlund
Read 1141 times
Written on 2008-10-16 at 07:18
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Baba-Yaga
"Baba-Yaga!" they scream, but she will not let them go, her breakfast, lunch and dinner. To dine on a child's flesh and bones. I prefer TV dinners, if asked. But that's neither here nor there. Her house on chicken legs, walking through the forest like some Nightmare Coupe de Ville, smoke spilling out of the chimney with wings, perhaps, flapping on the sides. Let them go! In Hungarian folk tales they don't get away, but are eaten. When the part-chicken, part-house settles a fence surrounds it. Not a white-picket fence, that's another fancy, but skulls on staves with candles glowing through the eye sockets. We can blame the decorator. We must. This crone, goddess, witch with an insatiable appetite. I know her well, now. As if we dined together. Me and my Banquet fried chicken, picking at the crust. Her gnawing on a meaty thigh bone. I've said enough. Forgive me. It's just that on the way home, in the path, tracks from a large bird.
October 15, 2008
© Anne Westlund
Poetry by Anne Westlund
Read 1141 times
Written on 2008-10-16 at 07:18
Save as a bookmark (requires login) Write a comment (requires login) Send as email (requires login) Print text
