Baba Yaga

There was this woman like a Buchenwald canary
Under the hairdryer
Filing her nails SKRITCH SKRITCH SKRITCH
With all the premeditation of a Florentine torturer
Flourishing the blade as she rasped her nails
Into some kind of obedience.
FLICK FLICK FLICK.
A duellist on the parried defense
With sounds like a Viking hell
Nails like the Longboat of the Damned
In their ceaseless.
Carving her talons, shaped for her prey.
Fixing her vulture eyes on grandchildren
SKRITCH SKRITCH SKRITCH
Instrument of death. My ears victim
My spine. Down a blackboard ceaseless
Her nails her nails her nails.


January 19, 1996
© Lela Kaunitz