Dearly Read online

  Publisher’s Note

  Rendering poetry in a digital format presents several challenges, just as its many forms continue to challenge the conventions of print. In print, however, a poem takes place within the static confines of a page, hewing as close as possible to the poet’s intent, whether it’s Walt Whitman’s lines stretching to the margin like Route 66, or Robert Creeley’s lines descending the page like a string tie. The printed poem has a physical shape, one defined by the negative space that surrounds it—a space that is crafted by the broken lines of the poem. The line, as vital a formal and critical component of the form of a poem as metaphor, creates rhythm, timing, proportion, drama, meaning, tension, and so on.

  Reading poetry on a small device will not always deliver line breaks as the poet intended—with the pressure the horizontal line brings to a poem, rather than the completion of the grammatical unit. The line, intended as a formal and critical component of the form of the poem, has been corrupted by breaking it where it was not meant to break, interrupting a number of important elements of the poetic structure—rhythm, timing, proportion, drama, meaning, and so on. It’s a little like a tightrope walker running out of rope before reaching the other side.

  There are limits to what can be done with long lines on digital screens. At some point, a line must break. If it has to break more than once or twice, it is no longer a poetic line, with the integrity that lineation demands. On smaller devices with enlarged type, a line break may not appear where its author intended, interrupting the unit of the line and its importance in the poem’s structure.

  We attempt to accommodate long lines with a hanging indent—similar in fashion to the way Whitman’s lines were treated in books whose margins could not honor his discursive length. On your screen, a long line will break according to the space available, with the remainder of the line wrapping at an indent. This allows readers to retain control over the appearance of text on any device, while also indicating where the author intended the line to break.

  This may not be a perfect solution, as some readers initially may be confused. We have to accept, however, that we are creating poetry e-books in a world that is imperfect for them—and we understand that to some degree the line may be compromised. Despite this, we’ve attempted to protect the integrity of the line, thus allowing readers of poetry to travel fully stocked with the poetry that needs to be with them.

  —Dan Halpern, Publisher

  Dedication

  For Graeme, in absentia

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Publisher’s Note

  Dedication

  I.

  Late Poems

  Ghost Cat

  Salt

  Passports

  Blizzard

  Coconut

  Souvenirs

  The Tin Woodwoman Gets a Massage

  If There Were No Emptiness

  II.

  Health Class (1953)

  A Genre Painting

  Princess Clothing

  Cicadas

  Double-Entry Slug Sex

  Everyone Else’s Sex Life

  Betrayal

  Frida Kahlo, San Miguel, Ash Wednesday

  Cassandra Considers Declining the Gift

  Shadow

  Songs for Murdered Sisters

  1. Empty Chair

  2. Enchantment

  3. Anger

  4. Dream

  5. Bird Soul

  6. Lost

  7. Rage

  Coda: Song

  The Dear Ones

  Digging Up the Scythians

  III.

  September Mushrooms

  Carving the Jacks

  A Drone Scans the Wreckage

  Aflame

  Update on Werewolves

  Zombie

  The Aliens Arrive

  Siren Brooding on Her Eggs

  Spider Signatures

  At the Translation Conference

  IV.

  Walking in the Madman’s Wood

  Feather

  Fatal Light Awareness

  Fear of Birds

  Short Takes on Wolves

  Table Settings

  Improvisation on a First Line by Yeats

  “Heart of the Arctic”

  Plasticene Suite

  1. Rock-like Object on Beach

  2. Faint Hopes

  3. Foliage

  4. Midway Island Albatross

  5. Editorial Notes

  6. Sorcerer’s Apprentice

  7. Whales

  8. Little Robot

  9. The Bright Side

  Tracking the Rain

  Oh Children

  The Twilight of the Gods

  This Fiord Looks Like a Lake

  V.

  One Day

  Sad Utensils

  Winter Vacations

  Hayfoot

  Mr. Lionheart

  Invisible Man

  Silver Slippers

  Within

  Flatline

  Disenchanted Corpse

  Dearly

  Blackberries

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Margaret Atwood

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  I.

  Late Poems

  These are the late poems.

  Most poems are late

  of course: too late,

  like a letter sent by a sailor

  that arrives after he’s drowned.

  Too late to be of help, such letters,

  and late poems are similar.

  They arrive as if through water.

  Whatever it was has happened:

  the battle, the sunny day, the moonlit

  slipping into lust, the farewell kiss. The poem

  washes ashore like flotsam.

  Or late, as in late for supper:

  all the words cold or eaten.

  Scoundrel, plight, and vanquished,

  or linger, bide, awhile,

  forsaken, wept, forlorn.

  Love and joy, even: thrice-gnawed songs.

  Rusted spells. Worn choruses.

  It’s late, it’s very late;

  too late for dancing.

  Still, sing what you can.

  Turn up the light: sing on,

  sing: On.

  Ghost Cat

  Cats suffer from dementia too. Did you know that?

  Ours did. Not the black one, smart enough

  to be neurotic and evade the vet.

  The other one, the furrier’s muff, the piece of fluff.

  She’d writhe around on the sidewalk

  for chance pedestrians, whisker

  their trousers, though not when she started losing

  what might have been her mind. She’d prowl the night

  kitchen, taking a bite

  from a tomato here, a ripe peach there,

  a crumpet, a softening pear.

  He reappears

  You rose from a snowbank

  with three heads, all

  your hands were in your pockets

  I said, haven’t

  I seen you somewhere before

  You pretended you were hungry

  I offered you sandwiches and gingerale

  but you refused

  Your six eyes glowed

  red, you shivered cunningly

  Can’t we

  be friends I said;

  you didn’t answer.

  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 aphorisms

  we meet behind endless potted palms

>   you climb through the wrong windows

  Other people are leaving

  but I always stay till the end

  I paid my money, I

  want to see what happens.

  In chance bathtubs I have to

  peel you off me

  in the form of smoke and melted

  celluloid

  Have to face it I’m

  finally an addict,

  the smell of popcorn and worn plush

  lingers for weeks

  She considers evading him

  I can change myself

  more easily

  than I can change you

  I could grow bark and

  become a shrub

  or switch back in time

  to the woman image left

  in cave rubble, the drowned

  stomach bulbed with fertility,

  face a tiny bead, a

  lump, queen of the termites

  or (better) speed myself up,

  disguise myself in the knuckles

  and purple-veined veils of old ladies,

  become arthritic and genteel

  or one twist further:

  collapse across your

  bed clutching my heart

  and pull the nostalgic sheet up over

  my waxed farewell smile

  which would be inconvenient

  but final.

  They eat out

  In restaurants we argue

  over which of us will pay for your funeral

  though the real question is

  whether or not I will make you immortal.

  At the moment only I

  can do it and so

  I raise the magic fork

  over the plate of beef fried rice

  and plunge it into your heart.

  There is a faint pop, a sizzle

  and through your own split head

  you rise up glowing;

  the ceiling opens

  a voice sings Love Is A Many

  Splendoured Thing

  you hang suspended above the city

  in blue tights and a red cape,

  your eyes flashing in unison.

  The other diners regard you

  some with awe, some only with boredom:

  they cannot decide if you are a new weapon

  or only a new advertisement.

  As for me, I continue eating;

  I liked you better the way you were,

  but you were always ambitious.

  After the agony in the guest

  bedroom, you lying by the

  overturned bed

  your face uplifted, neck propped

  against the windowsill, my arm

  under you, cold moon

  shining down through the window

  wine mist rising

  around you, an almost-

  visible halo

  You say, Do you

  love me, do you love me

  I answer you:

  I stretch your arms out

  one to either side,

  your head slumps forward.

  Later I take you home

  in a taxi, and you

  are sick in the bathtub.

  My beautiful wooden leader

  with your heartful of medals

  made of wood, fixing it

  each time so you almost win,

  you long to be bandaged

  before you have been cut.

  My love for you is the love

  of one statue for another: tensed

  and static. General, you enlist

  my body in your heroic

  struggle to become real:

  though you promise bronze rescues

  you hold me by the left ankle

  so that my head brushes the ground,

  my eyes are blinded,

  my hair fills with white ribbons.

  There are hordes of me now, alike

  and paralyzed, we follow you

  scattering floral tributes

  under your hooves.

  Magnificent on your wooden horse

  you point with your fringed hand;

  the sun sets, and the people all

  ride off in the other direction.

  He is a strange biological phenomenon

  Like eggs and snails you have a shell

  You are widespread

  and bad for the garden,

  hard to eradicate

  Scavenger, you feed

  only on dead meat:

  Your flesh by now

  is pure protein,

  smooth as gelatin

  or the slick bellies of leeches

  You are sinuous and without bones

  Your tongue leaves tiny scars

  the ashy texture of mildewed flowers

  You thrive on smoke; you have

  no chlorophyll; you move

  from place to place like a disease

  Like mushrooms you live in closets

  and come out only at night.

  You want to go back

  to where the sky was inside us

  animals ran through us, our hands

  blessed and killed according to our

  wisdom, death

  made real blood come out

  But face it, we have been

  improved, our heads float

  several inches above our necks

  moored to us by

  rubber tubes and filled with

  clever bubbles,

  our bodies

  are populated with billions

  of soft pink numbers

  multiplying and analyzing

  themselves, perfecting

  their own demands, no trouble to anyone.

  I love you by

  sections and when you work.

  Do you want to be illiterate?

  This is the way it is, get used to it.

  Their attitudes differ

  1

  To understand

  each other: anything

  but that, & to avoid it

  I will suspend my search for

  germs if you will keep

  your fingers off the microfilm

  hidden inside my skin

  2

  I approach this love

  like a biologist

  pulling on my rubber

  gloves & white labcoat

  You flee from it

  like an escaped political

  prisoner, and no wonder

  3

  You held out your hand

  I took your fingerprints

  You asked for love

  I gave you only descriptions

  Please die I said

  so I can write about it

  They travel by air

  A different room, this month

  a worse one, where your

  body with head

  attached and my head with

  body attached coincide briefly

  I want questions and you want

  only answers, but the building

  is warming up, there is not much

  time and time is not

  fast enough for us any

  more, the building sweeps

  away, we are off course, we

  separate, we hurtle towards each other

  at the speed of sound, everything roars

  we collide sightlessly and

  fall, the pieces of us

  mixed as disaster

  and hit the pavement of this room

  in a blur of silver fragments

  not the shore but an aquarium

  filled with exhausted water and warm

  seaweed

  glass clouded

  with dust and algae

  tray

  with the remains of dinner

  smells of salt carcasses and uneaten shells

  sunheat comes from wall

  grating no breeze

  you sprawl across

  the bed like a marooned

  starfish


  you are sand-

  coloured

  on my back

  your hand floats belly up

  You have made your escape,

  your known addresses

  crumple in the wind, the city

  unfreezes with relief

  traffic shifts back

  to its routines, the swollen

  buildings return to

  normal, I walk believably

  from house to store, nothing

  remembers you but the bruises

  on my thighs and the inside of my skull.

  Because you are never here

  but always there, I forget

  not you but what you look like

  You drift down the street

  in the rain, your face

  dissolving, changing shape, the colours

  running together

  My walls absorb

  you, breathe you forth

  again, you resume

  yourself, I do not recognize you

  You rest on the bed

  watching me watching

  you, we will never know

  each other any better

  than we do now

  Imperialist, keep off

  the trees I said.

  No use: you walk backwards,

  admiring your own footprints.

  After all you are quite

  ordinary: 2 arms 2 legs

  a head, a reasonable

  body, toes & fingers, a few

  eccentricities, a few honesties

  but not too many, too many

  postponements & regrets but

  you’ll adjust to it, meeting

  deadlines and other

  people, pretending to love

  the wrong woman some of the