Poet's Nook: "Tell Me Something Good" by Margaret Atwood

Tell me something good,

just one good thing, just tell me

something that will get me through

the hours the days the weeks that bring

nothing of any goodness, just more

news of other things like

spoiled meat or else raw

bones the dogs keep dragging in from god

knows where, what bombed-out car or ocean

wreck, whose child’s ribs wrenched

open, what woman’s torso torn like

bread, whose sons now head-

less, what trashed home, what

oily sludge a hundred miles

wide on which we feed, the words pour in, the door

won’t close. O stop, go mute,

just one good thing instead is all I ask.

So let’s say green

buds. Or wait, there aren’t a lot of those, just one

green bud might do, despite.

No. Wait. Let’s say a person said

Hello, and not unkindly. No. Let’s say

that it got cooler, or else warmer, or the rain

finished, or else it rained, whichever one

was needed. No. Instead say breakfast.

That could do it.

A faint shimmering

of plates and pearly spoons, a tender cup, what comfort!

There. That’s thirty minutes passed, at any

rate. The gate defended

for a little space, and wasn’t that

enough? No. Wait.