They say: Medusa

Headless gorgon, toga-wrapped like prized liqueur,

presented in a burlap sack, stone-dead and serpentine,

unfurling vines at the feet of a king.

A hard-won victory for a man on gifted wings,

carried on the backs of women who reviled her.

They say: Persephone

Dutiful daughter, dutiful wife.

A stolen innocence, a split fruit,

seeds burst and bloodied, spilling forth into hands skeletal.

A mother's tragedy rendered in punishing spectacle:

Loved in darkness and mourned in light.

I do not hear: Durga

Mahadevi, war-mother, tumeric-stained archer

She, creator of all worlds:

Many-armed as my Amma, drawing milk and blood in the same breath,

swallowing it to shield her children, bow drawn truer than any Artemis:

She is the tiger, the crashing tide and the harbor.

Some whisper: Hekate

many-named, midwife and hellhound-mother,

standing at the crossroads

waiting for you,

for your death,

or for the death of what

you no longer need.

I hear: Eve

Woman scorned, in pursuit of knowing,

perhaps in pursuit of the long coiling thing around it.

Cast out into exile, disgraced and defeated

as if learnedness was by the will of men, meted.

Punishment comes in pain and roses from her womb, glowing.

I hear: Esther

Queen of mercy, feasting and salvation.

Ever-graceful, kind, and gentle-tempered.

Took from her own carafe, wine for her people:

Like honey, dense, collapsing into itself as it drips from tower steeple.

Browned skin beneath the sun as revelation.

They do not say: Lakshmi.

Maiden of peace, keeper of fortune:

she rests in the lake, content with her power,

virile as man and wealthier for it.

Hands blooming like lotuses, mind like a fire-spit.

She weaves maternity and might with the mind as her loom.

They say: Mary

Virgin mother, blue-veiled and alabaster,
hands folded soft as surrender beneath cathedral glass.
A vessel sanctified, emptied and filled again,
milk made miracle, flesh rendered doctrine for men.
Her grief hangs gilded above the altar.

They say: Maryam

Chosen daughter, hidden among palm shadows,
laboring alone where no midwife's hands could find her.
The trunk bends low beneath a burden divine,
dates splitting sweetly against her tongue like wine.
A faith made silent where the reeds grow low.

They do not say: Inanna.

Queen of Heaven, clothed in stars and mortal sin:
she descended by choice through seven gates,
setting down crown and jewels as offerings to knowing.
Naked before death, yet never dimmed, never not-glowing.
She returned with the underworld woven into her skin.