Why we can be heroes AND heroines. This week, I'm reviewing the feminist pop-culture takedown The Heroine's Journey.

It’s a bright, sunny day, and a woman – okay, she’s a goddess – is just going about her daily business when BAM! her husband is murdered by his brother and chopped into pieces, or BAM! her daughter is sucked under the earth by the god of death, or BAM! her sister-in-law murders her for staging a power coup against the underworld. Right. I’m not sure if that last one works. But Ishtar is only…

The flowers raise,

to your indifference,

Meerkats to some king's

Arrival; A parade of swords.

-

The flowers flake,

Holes in the chimneys,

where you'd burrowed your sadness;

There is a chance of you breathing.

-

The flowers rise

Like drinks up to the

Heavens. Demi-gods and

Semi-gods exhume,

The dirt in all your burrows.

-

I clothe my dear breathing,

The air we'd borrowed

from the,

flowers that had sought remembrance,

from an anarchy of lost sparrows.

-

-A.Rabha