On the streets, Love; Margaret Atwood

[melodily.livejournal.com]

On the streets

love

these days

is a matter for

either scavengers

(turning death to life) or

(turning life

to death) for predators

(The billboard lady

with her white enamel

teeth and red

enamel claws, is after

the men

when they pass her

never guess they have brought her

to life, or that her

body’s made of cardboard, or in her

veins flows the drained

blood of their desire)

(Look, the grey man

his footsteps soft

as flan-

nel, glides from his poster

and the voracious women, seeing

him so trim,

edges clear as cut paper

eyes clean

and sharp as lettering,

wants to own him

…are you dead? are you dead?

they say, hoping…)

Love, what are we to do

on the streets these days

and how am I

to know that you

and how are you to know

that I, that

we are not parts of those

people, scraps glued together

waiting for a chance

to come to life

(One day

I’ll touch the warm

flesh of your throat, and hear

a faint crackle of paper

or you, who think

that you can read my mind

from the inside out, will taste the

black ink on my tongue, and find

the fine print written

just beneath my skin.)