HEART: Poetry of Margaret Atwood

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