mandalay

there is only one of everything

this is one of my favorite poems, and it conveys almost entirely how i feel about the last 24 hours, specifically this morning. It's by Margaret Atwood:

"There is Only One of Everything"

Not a tree but the tree
we saw, it will never exist, split by the wind
and bending down
like that again. What will push out of the earth

later, making it summer, will not be
grass, leaves, repetition, there will
have to be other words. When my

eyes close language vanishes. The cat
with the divided face, half black half orange
nests in my scruffy fur coat. I drink tea,

fingers curled around the cup, impossible
to duplicate these flavours. The table
and freak plates glow softly, consuming themselves,

I look out at you and you occur
in this winter kitchen, random as trees or sentences,
entering me, fading like them, in time you will disappear

but the way you dance by yourself
on the tile floor to a worn song, flat and mournful,
so delighted, spoon waved in one hand, wisps of
roughened hair

sticking up from your head, it's your surprised
body, pleasure I like. I can even say it,
though only once and it won't

last: I want this. I want
this.

posted by amanda @ 4:43 PM