"Suttee"
Click the arrow on the audio player to hear Carol Muske-Dukes read this poem. You can also download the recording or subscribe to Slate's Poetry Podcast on iTunes.
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Some go willingly;
Some resist.
The fire in which his body burns
Lights into her thin negligee, her hair—
One way or another: She comes back
From that pyre as ash.
Sati, that nonstop goddess, ignited herself
Like a lighter thumbed open—
Flame like a slit throat—
Gilt-black: the copper-red avenger.
He wants to make love to you one last time.
A widow I know made herself into a nerve
Kite: up, up in smoke. Because he'd blown
Himself away and left her with a fury at him
She could never express. O she burns, burns
In her own bones. What good are the earth's
Rickety steps hacked into the hillside? Ascend,
Ascend, little sheep. He loves me; he loves me not.
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Carol Muske-Dukes is professor of creative writing and English at USC and the author of eight books of poems, most recently Twin Cities.
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