Free Power Politics by Margaret Atwood Page A

window,
shut the window, the little
motors click
and whir, I turn on all the
taps and switches
    I take pills, I drink water, I kneel
    O electric lights
that shine on my suitcases and my fears
    Let me stop caring
about anything but skinless
wheels and smoothly
running money
    Get me out of this trap, this
body, let me be
like you, closed and useful
    7
    What do you expect after this?
Applause? Your name on stone?
    You will have nothing
but me and in a worse way than before,
    my face packed in cotton
in a white gift box, the features
    dissolving and re-forming so quickly
I seem only to flicker.

There are better ways of doing this
    It would be so good if you’d
only stay up there
where I put you, I could
believe, you’d solve
most of my religious problems
    you have to admit it’s easier
when you’re somewhere else
    but today it’s this
deserted mattress, music over-
heard through the end wall, you giving me
a hard time again for the fun
of it or just for
    the publicity, when we leave each other
it will be so
we can say we did.

    yes at first you
go down smooth as
pills, all of me
breathes you in and then it’s
    a kick in the head, orange
and brutal, sharp jewels
hit and my
hair splinters
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â the adjectives
fall away from me, no
threads left holding
me, I flake apart
layer by
layer down
quietly to the bone, my skull
unfolds to an astounded flower
    regrowing the body, learning
speech again takes
days and longer
each time / too much of
this is fatal

    The accident has occurred,
the ship has broken, the motor
of the car has failed, we have been
separated from the others,
we are alone in the sand, the ocean,
the frozen snow
    I remember what I have to do
in order to stay alive,
I take stock of our belongings
most of them useless
    I know I should be digging shelters,
killing seabirds and making
clothes from their feathers,
cutting the rinds from cacti, chewing
roots for water, scraping through
the ice for treebark, for moss
    but I rest here without power
to save myself, tasting
salt in my mouth, the fact that
you won’t save me
    watching the mirage of us
hands locked, smiling,
as it fades into the white desert.
    I touch you, straighten the sheet, you turn over
in the bed, tender
sun comes through the curtains
    Which of us will survive
which of us will survive the other

    1
    We are hard on each other
and call it honesty,
choosing our jagged truths
with care and aiming them across
the neutral table.
    The things we say are
true; it is our crooked
aims, our choices
turn them criminal.
    2
    Of course your lies
are more amusing:
you make them new each time.
    Your truths, painful and boring
repeat themselves over & over
perhaps because you own
so few of them
    3
    A truth should exist,
it should not be used
like this. If I love you
    is that a fact or a weapon?
    4
    Does the body lie
moving like this, are these
touches, hairs, wet
soft marble my tongue runs over
lies you are telling me?
    Your body is not a word,
it does not lie or
speak truth either.
    It is only
here or not here.

He shifts from east to west
    Because we have no history
I construct one for you
    making use of what
there is, parts of other people’s
lives, paragraphs
I invent, now and then
an object, a watch, a picture
you claim as yours
    (What did go on in that red
brick building with the fire
escape? Which river?)
    (You said you took
the boat, you forget too much.)
    I locate you on streets, in cities
I’ve never seen, you walk
against a background crowded
with lifelike detail
    which crumbles and turns grey
when I look too closely.
    Why should I need
to explain you, perhaps
this is the right place for you
    The mountains in this hard
clear vacancy are blue tin
edges, you appear
without prelude midway between
my eyes and the nearest trees,
your colours bright, your
outline flattened
    suspended in the air with no more
reason for occurring
exactly here than this billboard,
this highway or that cloud.

    At