Baba Yaga Encounters the 21st Century

Deidre Cavazzi

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I am every body,
and I am none of them.
A forest is a cathedral, is a coffin, is a crucible.

Heavy mist creeping, fingers of fog walking
through my veins until I am earth again,
until I remember that I am clay and story and
promise and aftermath,

that I am gooseflesh breath-prickled
over brittle bones, spruce-tangled hair
clothed in peeling birch skins:

the horror sliding from your tongue,
the telling you tuck behind teeth,
foundation of bones unwindowed.

You, who shiver in the dark
at the thought of my wrinkles and warts
have unleashed more hell on earth
than I ever could have.

My madness was always waltzing
with Nature, as tender, as terrible.

It’s give and take, my dear.

Chicken feet picking through mosses,
the mortar and pestle of me
grinding against earth, riding
one season into the next.

Birth is a death yet to be named,
longing steeped in love and letting go.

Snow always followed
and I picked the bones of winter
out of my teeth, already counting mushrooms

but you, you have made bonfires
out of forests, rivers out of glaciers,

you have killed more little ones than I,
have loosed more nightmares on the night.

You are the true maker of haunted places;
at least my dark woods still run with wolves,
my soil still writhing with worms
and tangled with roots.

My cackle and cry sing truths
while your honeyed voice is still
whispering falsehoods to yesterday.

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Author’s Bio: Deidre Cavazzi is a poet and choreographer based in California, where she can often be found wandering under redwoods or peering into tidepools. Her poetry chapbook, carapace, root & feather, was published by Bottlecap Press in Fall 2025, and she holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Dominican University.