by Tanya Dawes

I go after my muse
my Beatrice
armed with a mustard seed
a library
and skull
I peer inside my inkwell.
At it’s frozen depths I sketch
evil’s icy reflection
write my way through
the syntax of hell.
Word after word pages augment
I bumble, trip, flounder
along Dante’s path.
I write my way
to the edge of purgatory
to a real, imagined, dream.