Spectacle Triptych
Suchita Senthil Kumar
This is an old story. Our bodies
have always been spectacle.
i. 54 BC
A vast courtroom seated with men.
Taking the stand, a Roman politician,
client of the greatest ancient lawyer.
Accused of raping an actress.
The lawyer claimed it theatre tradition:
how elegant a youth such as that.
The little girl’s name: unknown.
Because years ago, when Planicus
and his friends saw her at the theatre,
they saw not a face with a name.
Only a body, theirs for the taking.
With an audience watching, turn by turn,
they bruised her with their hands and teeth.
Her body, then left discarded for the crowd.
ii. 509 BC
A poet calls Lucretia’s rapist an enemy lover.
The acts of enemy love: a sword at her throat,
threats of dishonour and a night of injury.
I won’t justify another unchaste woman
to continue living—
the words a man composes for her suicide.
Her husband and father in an eruption of rage
brought down royal tyranny. First we construct
female virtue, then build empires on top of it.
By the statute of David with Goliath’s head,
her dagger stabbed corpse was left an exhibit.
Her body, now a symbol of the Matrona.
iii. 2023
A father kills his daughter in the name of pride,
a husband tears his wife apart. In a village in the east,
men parade a woman they’ve raped across a field.
Suchita Senthil Kumar is a poet from Bengaluru, India. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Live Wire India, Corvid Queen, Honey Literary and Aster Lit among others. She makes life decisions asking herself one question: Will Sirius Black be proud?
