if we are to have magical bodies, we must have magical minds

Pacific Northwest forest walks

by Margaret Atwood

I

I, the performer in the tense arena, glittered under the fluorescent moon. Was bent masked by the table. Saw what focused my intent: the emptiness

The air filled with an ether of cheers.

My wrist extended a scalpel.

II

The table is a flat void, barren as total freedom. Though behold

A sharp twist like taking a jar top off

and it is a living skeleton, mine, round, that lies on the plate before me

red as a pomegranate, every cell a hot light.

III

I circle, confront my opponent. The thing

refuses to be shaped, it moves like yeast. I thrust,

the thing fights back. It dissolves, growls, grows crude claws;

The air is dusty with blood.

It springs. I cut with delicate precision.

The specimens ranged on the shelves, applaud.

The thing falls Thud. A cat anatomized.

O secret form of the heart, now I have you.

IV

Now I shall ornament you. What would you like?

Baroque scrolls on your ankles? A silver navel?

I am the universal weaver; I have eight fingers.

I complicate you; I surround you with intricate ropes.

What web shall I wrap you in? Gradually I pin you down.

What caution shall I carve and seal in your skull?

What size will I make you? Where should I put your eyes?

V

I was insane with skill: I made you perfect.

I should have chosen instead to curl you small as a seed,

trusted beginnings. Now I wince before this plateful of results:

core and rind, the flesh between already turning rotten.

I stand in the presence of the destroyed god:

a rubble of tendons, knuckles and raw sinews.

Knowing that the work is mine how can I love you?

These archives of potential time exude fear like a smell.

VI

You arise, larval and shrouded in the flesh I gave you;

I, who have no covering left but a white cloth skin

escape from you. You are red, you are human and distorted.

You have been starved, you are hungry. I have nothing to feed you.

I pull around me, running, a cape of rain.

What was my ravenous motive? Why did I make you?

VII

Reflection, you have stolen everything you needed:

my joy, my ability to suffer.

You have transmuted yourself to me: I am a vestige, I am numb.

Now you accuse me of murder.

Can’t you see I am incapable?

Blood of my brain, it is you who have killed these people.

VIII

Since I dared to attempt impious wonders

I must pursue that animal I once denied was mine.

Over this vacant winter plain, the sky is a black shell; I move within it, a cold kernel of pain.

I scratch huge rescue messages on the solid snow; in vain. My heart’s husk is a stomach. I am its food.

IX

The sparkling monster gambols there ahead, his mane electric: This is his true place.

He dances in spirals on the ice, his clawed feet kindling shaggy fires.

His happiness is now the chase itself: he traces it in light, his paths contain it.

I am the gaunt hunter necessary for his patterns, lurking, gnawing leather.

X

The creature, his arctic hackles bristling, spreads over the dark ceiling, his paws on the horizons, rolling the world like a snowball.

He glows and says:

Doctor, my shadow shivering on the table, you dangle on the leash of your own longing; your need grows teeth.

You sliced me loose

and said it was Creation. I could feel the knife. Now you would like to heal that chasm in your side, but I recede. I prowl.