Dearly: New Poems

by Margaret Atwood

Were things good then? Yes. They were good. Did you know they were good? At the time? Your time? No, because I was worrying or maybe hungry or asleep, half of those hours. Once in a while there was a pear or plum or a cup with something in it, or a white curtain, rippling, or else a hand. Also the mellow lamplight in that antique tent, falling on beauty, fullness, bodies entwined and cherishing, then flareup, and then gone. Mirages, you decide: everything was never. Though over your shoulder there it is, your time laid out like a picnic in the sun, still glowing, although it’s night. Don’t look behind, they say: You’ll turn to salt. Why not, though? Why not look? Isn’t it glittery? Isn’t it pretty, back there?

Blizzard

All those electrons, particles, and whatnot crammed in next to each other like junk in an attic, like trash in a compactor smashed together in a flat block so there’s nothing but plasma: no you no me.

That room has been static for me so long: an emptiness a void a silence containing an unheard story ready for me to unlock. Let there be plot.

It’s what you hope too, right? That beyond death, there’s flight? After the shrouding, up you’ll rise, delicate wings and all. Oh honey, it won’t be like that. Not quite.

Tomorrow they’ll be back in their middle-management black and Jimmy Choos with hours they can’t account for and first dates’ blood on the stairs.