Dearly: New Poems

by Margaret Atwood

And when I go that way, grow fur, start howling, scratch at your airwaves: no matter who I claim I am or how I love you, turn the key. Bar the window.

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?

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.

Little dollface robot, what will you make of yourself in this world we are making? What will you make of us? Where will you bestow yourself when you are obsolete? On what cosmic trashheap? Or will you live forever? Will we become your ancestors, rapacious and tedious? Or will you erase us? Will you drop us on the floor? Would that be better?

Dearly beloved, gathered here together in this closed drawer, fading now, I miss you. I miss the missing, those who left earlier. I miss even those who are still here. I miss you all dearly. Dearly do I sorrow for you. Sorrow: that’s another word you don’t hear much any more. I sorrow dearly.

Some berries occur in sun, but they are smaller. It’s as I always told you: the best ones grow in shadow.