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Love is not a profession
genteel or otherwise
sex is not dentistry
the slick filling of aches and cavities
you are not my doctor
you are not my cure,
nobody has that
power, you are merely a fellow/traveller
Give up this medical concern,
buttoned, attentive,
permit yourself anger
and permit me mine
which needs neither
your approval nor your suprise
which does not need to be made legal
which is not against a disease
but agaist you,
which does not need to be understood
or washed or cauterized,
which needs instead
to be said and said.
Permit me the present tense.
Margaret Atwood
Read poems about / on: sex, anger, power, love
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Click here to write your comments about this poem (Is/Not by Margaret Atwood)
Sonya S (12/28/2006 11:40:00 AM)
is there by any chance another link to a website with this poem posted, because i can't find any and i need about two other sources confirming this poem is by margaret atwood. |
Eileen Slade (12/20/2006 9:26:00 AM)
This is only half the poem. People should be more observant and careful before posting on the internet, but I guess in this age of immediacy, that may be too much to ask. The rest of the poem is this (and the first part of the poem should be labeled with 'i.') :
ii
I am not a saint or a cripple,
I am not a wound; now I will see
whether I am a coward.
I dispose of my good manners,
you don't have to kiss my wrists.
This is a journey, not a war,
there is no outcome,
I renounce predictions
and aspirins, I resign the future
as I would resign an expired passport:
picture and signature gone
along with holidays and safe returns.
We're stuck here
on this side of the border
in this country of thumbed streets and stale buildings
where there is nothing spectacular
to see and the weather is ordinary
where love occurs in its pure form only
on the cheaper of the souvenirs
where we must walk slowly,
where we may not get anywhere
or anything, where we keep going,
fighting our ways, our way
not out but through. |
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