The Muse
by Anna Akhmatova translated from the Russian by Stella Hayes

When at night I wait —, for her
My life — resting on a thread —. 
& what freedom —, or staying young,
Or bestowed greatness,
Before my gentle guest, with a pipe in her hand.
She is in the room —. Overthrowing her veil
& fixing her stare at me. I ask her: “Was it you
Who dictated Dante the pages from Hell?”
She whispers: “Yes.”

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) was a poet, translator, and literary scholar, one of the most significant figures in twentieth-century Russian literature. Although many of her poems remained unpublished in her homeland until decades after her death, her work was admired throughout her lifetime in the USSR and abroad.

Stella Hayes is the author of the poetry collection One Strange Country (What Books Press, 2020). She grew up in Brovary, a suburb outside of Kyiv, Ukraine, and Los Angeles. She earned a creative writing degree at the University of Southern California and earned her MFA in Poetry from NYU, where she served as poetry editor at Washington Square Review. Her work has been nominated for the Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Four Way Review, Poet Lore, Poetry Project’s The Recluse, Stanford’s Mantis, Prelude and Spillway among others.