MADAME CURIE Poem by Cecilie Løveid

I

Madame Curie's
sarcophagus is not in Inferno
It is in a mausoleum in Paris
It is of hard green stone
Like a Chinese empress she lies
covered by a body-hugging armour of jade
with a small lump of dragon seed in her gullet
cooked with rice and morning dew
to stop her from crumbling

Here lies the world's most vital Madame
and shines like a meat-stone
for he who seeks miracles and excitement
and then you learn that the woman is passive
and monogamous to examen philosophicum in Logic


II

Madame is radioactive
and entrusted to her love
She has blended into the reindeer
which is gorging on cowberries and lichen
And I who am gorging
on the doe and the rest of the cowberries
suggest making Madame a goddess
of this time
a goddess
whom radioactive children
are forced to kneel to
and love