The Ballad of Angrboða

Your woods were quiet

when you saw him:

A fire god, slightly singed.

(Let’s not put this out yet.

Let’s nurse it a little longer.

Come here and help me.)

You could have bolted.

He would have let you.

But he stood smiling

and you came shyly to his

outstretched hand.

Loki knows something you don’t know, Angrboða.

Look at those eyes.

Only ancient eyes can laugh like that.

He will laugh at you, Hag of the Iron Wood,

for the thousand ways you are laughable,

even as he fills you.

He will laugh with his bright wolf voice

He will laugh with his eyes like the sharp full moon through still water

that is not as shallow as you think it is

He will laugh with his hands on you,

so sweet you could cry

He will laugh like a well-played instrument

And you will stand among the redwood sounds

and feel the comfort of their bower.

He laughs because he sees you.

He’s not as you expected him

But you were born Angrboða,

darling,

and the story was already written.

He will burn your body to ash,

then gather you back into his arms

and burn you again

and again

and again

and the oceans he melts from you

will carry you to new lands.

You will bear ideas together —

beautiful

terrible

powerful

ideas.

and you will raise them as your own.

And though he will find his Sigyn

(for that is written, too)

that day is many pages hence.

Now,

spread yourself beneath him

like a meadow of fragrant flowers

like a book waiting for a pen

like the goodbad witch he loves to love

and show him your softest places

and invite him to your deepest depths.

And when they say

“I don’t know about that Loki —

I’ve heard he’s a trickster

and so he must be wicked.”

You will laugh

because you have seen him.