Dearly: New Poems

by Margaret Atwood

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?

Only of some idea you’d had of them, soft-lit and mystic, with snowfall sifting down and a mauve December sunset—

rose-toned, lovely as a pirouette, a lipstick pout, a candied violet,

while hanging up the wash— the sheets, the pillowcases— with their white smell of June rain in the years when you still did that and pear blossoms fell around you joyous as weddings

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