Lunchbox Poems

i.

They were wrong about the sun.

It does not go down into

the underworld at night.

The sun leaves merely

and the underworld emerges.

It can happen at any moment.

It can happen in the morning,

you in the kitchen going through

your mild routines.

Plate, cup, knife.

All at once there’s no blue, no green,

no warning.

ii.

Old thread, old line

of ink twisting out into the clearness

we call space

where are you leading me this time?

Past the stove, past the table,

past the daily horizontal

of the floor, past the cellar,

past the believable,

down into the darkness

where you reverse and shine.

iii.

At first you think they are angels,

these albino voices, these voices

like the unpainted eyes of statues,

these mute voices like gloves

with no hands in them

these moth voices

fluttering

and baffled around your ears,

trying to make you hear them.

What do they need?

You make a cut in yourself,

a little opening

for the pain to get in.

You set loose three drops of your blood.

v.

There is the staircase,

there is the sun.

There is the kitchen,

the plate with toast and strawberry jam,

your subterfuge,

your ordinary mirage.

You stand red-handed.

You want to wash yourself

in earth, in rocks and grass

What are you supposed to do

with all this loss?

MARGARET ATWOOD