(Nine Poets Speak) underground by Susan Hawthorne

[Editors’ Note: Learn about how the “Nine Poets Speak” series came to be in place here.]

Lupa, the She-wolf mother of Rome Photo © Susan Hawthorne, 2013 (20 August) Capitoline Museum

Manastabel has taken over from Curatrix and says

always look for those who have to go underground

takes us to Calypso’s cave in a cliff above the crashing Maltese sea

the hidden one whose hollow can be entered only on belly and thighs

before we know it we are stilled in the silence of the hypogeum

its skeletons humming and thrumming in that curled chamber

they are rushing us now Persephone Inanna Sarasvati

clamouring over whose hideout is deepest who the darkest

Sarasvati skites who else has a river named after them

an invisible line on a map Inanna is shepherding kings swathed

in seven veils she stomps around the fissured floor in frustration

Persephone sips red wine and nibbles seeds of winter pomegranates

Etruscans and Cretans are arguing about their necropoli and labyrinths

which was the most beautiful the Etruscan queen shows us her fresco

of dancing maenads drunk with desire at the hour of death

Ariadne meanwhile has found the centre and will not speak of it

Agnese is itching to show us her place the tufa maze under Rome

here sup seven women sharing bread she names them Saturnia

Hilarina Dominanda Rogatina Serotina Paulina Donata every one

a virgin and here Susanna defending herself against the charge of adultery

Manastabal leads us to one last concealed site music shudders through us

a long bar with an array of beverages from retsina and Latin wines

to whiskeys grappa beer the Queen of Wands beckons Wittig

and Judy Grahn calls come have a drink what’s your poison?

Author’s Notes:

Manastabel is the guide Monique Wittig uses in her revisionary rewriting of Dante’s Inferno, in her novel, Across the Acheron (1987).

Persephone: Greek Queen of the Underworld. Abducted by Hades, mourned by Demeter. She is tricked into eating the seeds of the pomegranate, thereby ensuring she must return to the Underworld for half of every year.

Inanna: Sumerian goddess of love and fertility who makes a descent to the Underworld ruled by her sister, Ereshkigal. Stripped of her power, Inanna is turned into a corpse and hung on a meat hook for three days.

Sarasvatī: Hindu goddess of writing, knowledge, the arts and nature. The Sarasvatī River is reputed to run invisibly underground.

© Susan Hawthorne, 2014, Lupa and Lamb, Melbourne: Spinifex Press. https://www.spinifexpress.com.au/shop/p/9781742199245