Morning in the Burned House

​

In the burned house I am eating breakfast.
You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast,
yet here I am.

​

The spoon which was melted scrapes against
the bowl which was melted also.
No one else is around.

​

Where have they gone to, brother and sister,
mother and father? Off along the shore,
perhaps. Their clothes are still on the hangers,

​

their dishes piled beside the sink,
which is beside the woodstove
with its grate and sooty kettle,

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every detail clear,
tin cup and rippled mirror.
The day is bright and songless,

​

the lake is blue, the forest watchful.
In the east a bank of cloud
rises up silently like dark bread.

​

I can see the swirls in the oilcloth,
I can see the flaws in the glass,
those flares where the sun hits them.

​

I can't see my own arms and legs
or know if this is a trap or blessing,
finding myself back here, where everything

​

in this house has long been over,
kettle and mirror, spoon and bowl,
including my own body,

​

including the body I had then,
including the body I have now
as I sit at this morning table, alone and happy,

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bare child's feet on the scorched floorboards
(I can almost see)
in my burning clothes, the thin green shorts

​

and grubby yellow T-shirt
holding my cindery, non-existent,
radiant flesh. Incandescent.

​

From Morning in the Burned House by Margaret Atwood. Copyright © 1995 by Margaret Atwood. Published in the United States by Houghton Mifflin Co., published in Canada by McClelland and Stewart, Inc. All rights reserved.