the eat out

They eat out
by Margaret Atwood

In restaurants we argue over which of us will pay for your funeral
though the real question is whether or not I will make you immortal.

At the moment only I can do it
and so I raise the magic fork over the plate of beef fried rice and plunge it into your heart.

There is a faint pop, a sizzle
and through your own split head you rise up glowing;

the ceiling opens a voice sings Love Is A Many Splendoured Thing
you hang suspended above the city in blue tights and a red cape, your eyes flashing in unison.

The other diners regard you some with awe, some only with boredom:
they cannot decide if you are a new weapon or only a new advertisement.

As for me, I continue eating; I liked you better they way you were,
but you were always ambitious.
"They eat out" by Margaret Atwood, from Selected Poems 1965-1975. © Houghton Mifflin