The Woman Who Could Not Live With Her Faulty Heart - Margaret Atwood

[soulquake.livejournal.com]

The Woman Who Could Not Live With Her Faulty Heart

I do not mean the symbol
of love, a candy shape
to decorate cakes with,
the heart that is supposed
to belong or break;

I mean this lump of muscle
that contracts like a flayed biceps,
purple-blue, with its skin of suet,
its skin of gristle, this isolate,
this caved hermit, unshelled
turtle, this one lungful of blood,
no happy plateful.

All hearts float in their own
deep oceans of no light,
wetblack and glimmering,
their four mouths gulping like fish.
Hearts are said to pound:
this is to be expected, the heart's
regular struggle against being drowned.

But most hearts say, I want, I want,
I want, I want. My heart
is more duplicitous,
though to twin as I once thought.
It says, I want, I don't want, I
want, and then a pause.
It forces me to listen,

and at night it is the infra-red
third eye that remains open
while the other two are sleeping
but refuses to say what it has seen.

It is a constant pestering
in my ears, a caught moth, limping drum,
a child's fist beating
itself against the bedsprings:
I want, I don't want.
How can one live with such a heart?

Long ago I gave up singing
to it, it will never be satisfied or lulled.
One night I will say to it:
Heart, be still,
and it will.

-Margaret Atwood

Comments

[hellspoette.livejournal.com]

*serious chills* When Atwood is good, she is very very good. My oh my. This is the perfect blend of the physical & the, er, metaphysical, I suppose. Sometimes you see what you're striving for, created by someone else, and it hurts a little... just a little.

[uglyloveletters.livejournal.com]

[etelleadit.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

[soulquake.livejournal.com]

Yes, you're right.

[writtenbyhand.livejournal.com]

When Atwood is good, she is very very good.
Exactly my thoughts! This is glorious.

[ms-will-b-happy.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting, I hadn't read that one. The imagery here is spot on, and because of this, a poem that a lesser writer would have made depressing and contrived, she has made almost upbeat despite it being, at it's most basic, a complaint.

[schroederjt.livejournal.com]

Wow, I love this. What collection is it in?

[soulquake.livejournal.com]

It's in Eating Fire, Selected Poetry 1965-1995 and Two-Headed Poems.

[persephone-blue.livejournal.com]

Allow me to gush. This is a great answer to a love poem.

[petticoatlane.livejournal.com]

My God, that was sublime!

[homedrinking.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this, one of my favorite poems. A nice turn to take during the day.

[kementari2.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh. Yes.

[keonaa.livejournal.com]

Beautiful!

[miir.livejournal.com]

This is incredible. One minor question though: the line

their four months gulping like fish.

Is that really months, or is it a typo and should be mouths?

[soulquake.livejournal.com]

Should be mouths. I fixed it. Thanks for noticing and telling me about it. :)

[mewmewmewmewmew.livejournal.com]

yessssssssssssss long time favorite.

[bloodrebel333.livejournal.com]

Nice.