Poem: Habitation

Habitation by Margaret Atwood

Marriage is not a house or even a tent
it is before that, and colder:
the edge of the forest, the edge of the desert
the unpainted stairs at the back where we squat outside,
eating popcorn
the edge of the receding glacier
where painfully and with wonder at having survived even this far
we are learning to make fire

Sent to us by Joan Krieger Hoffman