We were wolves and ravens, swans and bears, creatures stalking
or flying through wild woods—until witches transformed us into beauties.
We felt our claws soften into fingers, our fur slip from our skin to carpet
the underbrush. We closed new lips and shook our feathers from our limbs.
In the moonlight, our human skin is bright enough to glow, no fur
or scale to guard against attack. Blood too close to the surface.
We sniff the air, noses already numb to the language of scent,
no longer certain which of us was the hunter, which the prey.
We are wish-maidens conceived of dark night’s transformation,
whose bodies remember their supple, feral strength.
Witches whisper that our name is a simple one, one part
meaning to slay, one part meaning to choose.
We want to stalk the shadows, but our feet stutter, our steps
clumsy as a faun. How can we hunt or fight in such a fragile form?
Will they lead us to kitchens to toil and scrub, to ballrooms to dance
on gold slippered feet, to billowing beds to lie still as carrion?
Or do we still carry terror, some beast inside our hearts, the untamed
thing that lets in the air as we welcome them, folding back the coverlet?
We part our curtain of hair, look to our brothers, who still bear wings
and paws. They turn away to the nestling shadows of the trees.
Alone, we consider the world with new, weaker eyes, discover
pathways, then roads that cut through this strange undergrowth.