she knew
what had happened to her,Vasalisa was out the door.
Only this time she had
the fire
in a skull
on a stick
in her hands!
“Nice Boots!”
Baba Yaga called out the door to her, as Vasalisa departed.
“They’re utilitarian,”
answered Vasalisa,
“You know...made for walking.”
“Consider the Uses of Adversity...”
shouted the Yaga,
always one to have the last word.
“And GOOD LUCK
FINDING
EMPLOYMENT!”
Vasalisa couldn’t believe that she was finally
free
free of Baba Yaga
free as the pages of an unbound book!
AND that she had somehow passed her tests
without being eaten alive
AND that she’d gotten what she’d come for:
a luminary with plenty of memory
a portable power center rammed on a joystick!
(battery pack included)
checked her rear view mirror
caught one last glimpse of the hut
spinning
on its Kentucky Fried chicken legs
and suddenly felt sentimental about her time
in the Hot House.
But the doll coaxed her along
and Vasalisa used the skull to blaze the trail
this way
to the left
to the right
over the freeway
and through the tunnels
back to her home
(if you could call it that.)
At one point her arms got so tired
from carrying the flaming skull-on-a-stick
that she considered leaving it there
on the gravelly shoulder of the highway
like road kill
for some sanitation truck to dispose of...
But now the skull was getting verbal on her too:
“Oh No...you don’t want to put me down sweetheart,
not after you’ve made it this far.”
So she kept carrying the ghastly thing
and it lit her way
through the darkest part of the woods
where the tree trunks grow in massive columns
like the underside
of an overpass.
to where things started to look familiar again
.
And there was her house
sitting in the dark
with all its lights out.
From the window
the step mother
and the step sisters
could see Vasalisa emerge
triumphantly
from her venture.
They welcomed her inside
with her conflagrant curio
Needless to say,
they were impressed.
wasn’t it weird?
wasn’t it horrible?
(wasn’t it wonderful!)
She set it down
and booted it up
and logged onto it
and it just sat there
glowing back at them
incandescent
flickering
luminous
an eerie monitor
in the dark family room.
