Bluefarewell

Let's Cherik it.

IS/NOT

Love is not a profession

genteel or otherwise

sex is not dentistry

the slick filling of aches and cavities

you are not my doctor

you are not my cure,

nobody has that

power, you are merely a fellow/traveller

Give up this medical concern,

buttoned, attentive,

permit yourself anger

and permit me mine

which needs neither

your approval nor your suprise

which does not need to be made legal

which is not against a disease

but agaist you,

which does not need to be understood

or washed or cauterized,

which needs instead

to be said and said.

Permit me the present tense.

ii

I am not a saint or a cripple,

I am not a wound; now I will see

whether I am a coward.

I dispose of my good manners,

you don’t have to kiss my wrists.

This is a journey, not a war,

there is no outcome,

I renounce predictions

and aspirins, I resign the future

as I would resign an expired passport:

pictures and signature are gone

along with holidays and safe returns.

We’re stuck here

on this side of the border

in this country of thumbed streets and stale buildings

where there is nothing spectacular

to see and the weather is ordinary

where love occurs in its pure form only

on the cheaper of the souvenirs

where we must walk slowly,

where we may not get anywhere

or anything, where we keep going,

fighting our ways, our way

not out but through.

Margaret Atwood

Selected Poems: 1965-1975