I set the telephone receiver down with a shake of my head. He had insisted that I could help him. What I was thinking was, “I can barely help myself some days”.
He insisted that he was given this number and MY extension and that I should be able to assist him. Of course I spoke in a voice that was dripping of the stickiest and sweetest of honey. I led him on him on in a way. I made him think that I had nothing better to do than to help him with his problem that in reality I couldn’t help him with. I asked him if he had kids. Maybe just maybe if he did I’d be able to do something for him. No kids. He had no way of knowing how irritated I was. How something much like rage was welling inside of me. Here was yet another man telling me that he knew more than I. Telling me that I was wrong and because he had been given MY extension at THIS number no matter what I said I should be able to help him with the struggle that he was facing because he knew better than I what I could do. It’s much like being told that you should be happy or that you are wrong for feeling the way that you feel or thinking the things you think.
I needed poetry.
I left my office and popped my head into the office of a co-worker.
“I’ll be back in 20 minutes I need poetry”.
She laughed, always expecting something unexpected from me, “Okay, I hope you find some”
I walked the block to the library and wandered up the steps to the second floor. I knew exactly where I was going but I had no idea what I was looking for. I grabbed a Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry off the shelf and went to find a quiet place to sit and find the poetry that I needed. Facing me was a man in a suit and tie. Our eyes met and I smiled. Two professionals sitting in the library in the middle of the day. I think he needed poetry too. I wonder what drove him out of his office in search of something at the library. I opened the book and flipped through the pages. Glancing over the words and with patience I knew I would find whatever it was that I was looking for.
Some people turn to the Bible or other form of religious book in search of wisdom and direction. I turn to poetry. I let someone else find the words that I’m just not able to find and place them in the right combination. I hadn’t needed poem for such a long time. Here I was needing a poem. Needing the words.
“How much longer can I get away with being so fucking cute?”
I smiled. I hope that the guy in the suit and tie found the poem that he was looking for.
Miss July Grows Older
Margaret Atwood
How much longer can I get away
with being so fucking cute?
Not much longer.
The shoes with bows, the cunning underwear
with slogans on the crotch — Knock Here,
and so forth –
will have to go, along with the cat suit.
After a while you forget
what you really look like.
You think your mouth is the size it was.
You pretend not to care.
When I was young I went with my hair
hiding one eye, thinking myself daring;
off to the movies in my jaunty pencil
skirt and elastic cinch-belt,
chewed gum, left lipstick
imprints the shape of grateful, rubbery
sighs on the cigarettes of men
I hardly knew and didn’t want to.
Men were a skill, you had to have
good hands, breathe into
their nostrils, as for horses. It was something I did well,
like playing the flute, although I don’t.
In the forests of grey stems there are standing pools,
tarn-coloured, choked with brown leaves.
Through them you can see an arm, a shoulder,
when the light is right, with the sky clouded.
The train goes past silos, through meadows,
the winter wheat on the fields like scanty fur.
I still get letters, although not many.
A man writes me, requesting true-life stories
about bad sex. He’s doing an anthology.
He got my name off an old calendar,
the photo that’s mostly bum and daisies,
back when my skin had the golden slick
of fresh-spread margarine.
Not rape, he says, but disappointment,
more like a defeat of expectations.
Dear Sir, I reply, I never had any.
Bad sex, that is.
It was never the sex, it was the other things,
the absence of flowers, the death threats,
the eating habits at breakfast.
I notice I’m using the past tense.
Though the vaporous cloud of chemicals that enveloped you
like a glowing eggshell, an incense,
doesn’t disappear: it just gets larger
and takes in more. You grow out
of sex like a shrunk dress
into your common senses, those you share
with whatever’s listening. The way the sun
moves through the hours becomes important,
the smeared raindrops
on the window, buds
on the roadside weeds, the sheen
of spilled oil on a raw ditch
filling with muddy water.
Don’t get me wrong: with the lights out
I’d still take on anyone,
if I had the energy to spare.
But after a while these flesh arpeggios get boring,
like Bach over and over;
too much of one kind of glory.
When I was all body I was lazy.
I had an easy life, and was not grateful.
Now there are more of me.
Don’t confuse me with my hen-leg elbows:
what you get is no longer
what you see.
—————-
Now playing: Avril Lavigne – When You’re Gone
via FoxyTunes
Filed under: Poem, poetry, reading, small thoughts
I think probably this post, this poem, this whole entry- is one of my favorite things I’ve ever read.
Amuirin that means so much to me! Thank you. You made my day. This is completely true and I was actually proud to write it because well it made sense to me. I was well aware that there would be plenty of people who wouldn’t get it and the fact that you do just speaks volumes to me. Thank you so much.
It’s true. You should be proud to write it, this was a pleasure to read.
uptop ^ Ever heard Jason Mraz ‘Wordplay’? The live version is pretty inspiring. He deserved the fame he had a couple years ago, the guy’s talented.
Strange, isn’t it, the ways in which we are nudged toward the words we need to hear?
I’m a huge Atwood fan, but had never read any of her poetry until I visited your post today. Thanks.
Great post. I’ve read several of Atwood’s novels, but never her poetry. I’ll put her on my “To Read” list.
What a wonderful post and poem! Thank you, Bibliomom. This was something I needed today.
Also thanking you for bringing that poem into my orbit. Wow.
I read her until Handmaid’s Tales and then stopped. Never thought it was all that good though it seemed to bring her a jump of attention. Preferred the earlier stuff.
Good ‘ole Norton Anthology. I was rearranging my bookshelf yesterday and put my copy in a more accessible place. Perhaps while nursing I can also become less dumb. I feel dumb these days because I read and write so little. Oh well.
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Margaret Atwood is very cool, always an original take and finely crafted language. And so are you,