Power Politics by Margaret Atwood

They travel by air
    A different room, this month
a worse one, where your
body with head
attached and my head with
body attached coincide briefly
    I want questions and you want
only answers, but the building
is warming up, there is not much
    time and time is not
fast enough for us any
more, the building sweeps
away, we are off course, we
separate, we hurtle towards each other
at the speed of sound, everything roars
    we collide sightlessly and
fall, the pieces of us
mixed as disaster
and hit the pavement of this room
in a blur of silver fragments

    not the shore but an aquarium
filled with exhausted water and warm
seaweed
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â glass clouded
with dust and algae
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â tray
with the remains of dinner
    smells of salt carcasses and uneaten shells
    sunheat comes from wall
grating              no breeze
    you sprawl across
                              the bed like a marooned
    starfish
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â you are sand-
    coloured
    Â Â Â Â Â on my back
    your hand floats belly up

    You have made your escape,
your known addresses
crumple in the wind, the city
unfreezes with relief
    traffic shifts back
to its routines, the swollen
buildings return to
    normal, I walk believably
from house to store, nothing
    remembers you but the bruises
on my thighs and the inside of my skull.

    Because you are never here
but always there, I forget
not you but what you look like
    You drift down the street
in the rain, your face
dissolving, changing shape, the colours
running together
    My walls absorb
you, breathe you forth
again, you resume
yourself, I do not recognize you
    You rest on the bed
watching me watching
you, we will never know
each other any better
    than we do now

    Imperialist, keep off
the trees I said.
    No use: you walk backwards,
admiring your own footprints.

    After all you are quite
ordinary: 2 arms 2 legs
a head, a reasonable
body, toes & fingers, a few
eccentricities, a few honesties
but not too many, too many
postponements & regrets but
    you’ll adjust to it, meeting
deadlines and other
people, pretending to love
the wrong woman some of the
time, listening to your brain
shrink, your diaries
expanding as you grow older,
    growing older, of course you’ll
die but not yet, you’ll outlive
even my distortions of you
    and there isn’t anything
I want to do about the fact
that you are unhappy & sick
    you aren’t sick & unhappy
only alive & stuck with it.

Small tactics
    1
    These days my fingers bleed
even before I bite them
    Can’t play it safe, can’t play
at all any more
    Let’s go back please
to the games, they were
more fun and less painful
    2
    You too have your gentle
moments, you too have
eyelashes, each of your eyes
is a different colour
    in the half light
your body stutters against
me, tentative as moths, your
skin is nervous
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â I touch
your mouth, I don’t
want to hurt
you any more
now than I have to
    3
    Waiting for news of you
which does not come, I have to
guess you
    Â Â Â Â You are
in the city, climbing the stairs
already, that is you at the door
    or you have gone, your last
message to me left
illegible on the mountain
road, quick
scribble of glass and blood
    4
    For stones, opening
is not easy
    Staying closed is
less pain but
    your anger finally
is more dangerous
    To be picked up and thrown
(you won’t stop) against
    the ground, picked up
and thrown again and again
    5
    It’s getting bad, you weren’t
there again
    Wire silences, you trying
    to think of something you haven’t
said, at least to me
    Me trying to give
the impression it isn’t
    getting bad         at least
not yet
    6
    I walk the cell, open the