Margaret Atwood

You Take My Hand

You take my hand and I’m suddenly in a bad movie, It goes on and on and Why am I fascinated We waltz in slow motion Through an air stale with aphrodisms We meet

This Is A Photograph Of Me

It was taken some time ago. At first it seems to be A smeared Print: blurred lines and grey flecks Blended with the paper; Then, as you scan It, you see in the left-hand

My daughter plays on the floor With plastic letters, Red, blue & hard yellow, Learning how to spell, Spelling, How to make spells. * I wonder how many women Denied themselves daughters, Closed themselves

Habitation

Marriage is not A house or even a tent It is before that, and colder: The edge of the forest, the edge Of the desert the unpainted stairs At the back where we squat

Variation On The Word Sleep

I would like to watch you sleeping, Which may not happen. I would like to watch you, Sleeping. I would like to sleep With you, to enter Your sleep as its smooth dark wave

More and More

More and more frequently the edges Of me dissolve and I become A wish to assimilate the world, including You, if possible through the skin Like a cool plant’s tricks with oxygen And live

Morning in the Burned House

In the burned house I am eating breakfast. You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast, Yet here I am. The spoon which was melted scrapes against The bowl which was melted

Postcards

I’m thinking about you. What else can I say? The palm trees on the reverse Are a delusion; so is the pink sand. What we have are the usual Fractured coke bottles and the

Backdropp Addresses Cowboy

Starspangled cowboy Sauntering out of the almost- Silly West, on your face A porcelain grin, Tugging a papier-mache cactus On wheels behind you with a string, You are innocent as a bathtub Full of

Sekhmet, the Lion-headed Goddess of War

He was the sort of man Who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Many flies are now alive While he is not. He was not my patron. He preferred full granaries, I battle. My roar meant

Provisions

What should we have taken With us? We never could decide On that; or what to wear, Or at what time of Year we should make the journey So here we are in thin

The Rest

The rest of us watch from beyond the fence As the woman moves with her jagged stride Into her pain as if into a slow race. We see her body in motion But hear

Is/Not

Love is not a profession Genteel or otherwise Sex is not dentistry The slick filling of aches and cavities You are not my doctor You are not my cure, Nobody has that Power, you

Night Poem

There is nothing to be afraid of, It is only the wind Changing to the east, it is only Your father the thunder Your mother the rain In this country of water With its

Bored

All those times I was bored Out of my mind. Holding the log While he sawed it. Holding The string while he measured, boards, Distances between things, or pounded Stakes into the ground for

A Visit

Gone are the days When you could walk on water. When you could walk. The days are gone. Only one day remains, The one you’re in. The memory is no friend. It can only

The Landlady

This is the lair of the landlady She is A raw voice Loose in the rooms beneath me. The continuous henyard Squabble going on below Thought in this house like The bicker of blood

The City Planners

Cruising these residential Sunday Streets in dry August sunlight: What offends us is The sanities: The houses in pedantic rows, the planted Sanitary trees, assert Levelness of surface like a rebuke To the dent

You Begin

You begin this way: This is your hand, This is your eye, This is a fish, blue and flat On the paper, almost The shape of an eye This is your mouth, this is

Siren Song

This is the one song everyone Would like to learn: the song That is irresistible: The song that forces men To leap overboard in squadrons Even though they see the beached skulls The song

The Shadow Voice

My shadow said to me: What is the matter Isn’t the moon warm Enough for you Why do you need The blanket of another body Whose kiss is moss Around the picnic tables The

Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing

The world is full of women Who’d tell me I should be ashamed of myself If they had the chance. Quit dancing. Get some self-respect And a day job. Right. And minimum wage, And

In The Secular Night

In the secular night you wander around Alone in your house. It’s two-thirty. Everyone has deserted you, Or this is your story; You remember it from being sixteen, When the others were out somewhere,

The Moment

The moment when, after many years Of hard work and a long voyage You stand in the centre of your room, House, half-acre, square mile, island, country, Knowing at last how you got there,

A Sad Child

You’re sad because you’re sad. It’s psychic. It’s the age. It’s chemical. Go see a shrink or take a pill, Or hug your sadness like an eyeless doll You need to sleep. Well, all

Flying Inside Your Own Body

Your lungs fill & spread themselves, Wings of pink blood, and your bones Empty themselves and become hollow. When you breathe in you’ll lift like a balloon And your heart is light too &

Variations on the Word Love

This is a word we use to plug Holes with. It’s the right size for those warm Blanks in speech, for those red heart- Shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing Like real