DANTE


 
 
Spiral, whirlpool, maelstrom, Medusa’s
hair – these metaphors of curvature
(like paint dust afloat from Siena’s
nearby mural) only remind you where
you are: in Hell.  The sordid images
(once disgust subsides) become pure
pathos, after all.  Where desire rages
sympathy begins, and as desire is
mother to the deed, the deed rampages
in the shadow of your own hot fire,
Dante.  The flame, your Beatrice says,
travels in a circle on its wire

 
and where that scintillating comet goes
you follow, wheeling (as the wind blows).