Meeting Benches World art in all forms
HEART
Some sell their blood. You will sell the heart. Either that or the soul. The hard part is to pull out the damn thing. A kind of spiral movement, like an oyster shell, your spine a pulse, and then, hey presto! It is in your mouth. Nearly you put yourself in turmoil, like un’attinia ejecting a stone. There is a broken noise, the din of fish guts into a bucket, and behold, a huge lump and brilliant deep red, of a past still alive, in one piece on a silver platter. It is passed. It is slippery. It is dropped, but also tasted. Too bad, says one. Too salty. Too harsh, said another, with a grimace. Everyone is a gourmet instant, and you hear everything in the corner, just hired as a waiter, your hand, mistrustful and capable in the wound hidden under his shirt and chest, shyly, heartless.
(Margaret Atwood)
http://www.amazon.com/Selected-Poems-1965-1975-Margaret-Atwood/dp/0395404223
