Habitation
Habitation
Original Text
Margaret Atwood, Selected Poems (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1976): 133.
1Marriage is not
2a house or even a tent
3it is before that, and colder:
4the edge of the forest, the edge
5of the desert
6 the unpainted stairs
7at the back where we squat
8outside, eating popcorn
9the edge of the receding glacier
10where painfully and with wonder
11at having survived even
12this far
13we are learning to make fire
Publication Start Year
1970
Publication Notes
Margaret Atwood, Procedures from Underground (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1970).
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2009
Special Copyright
"Habitation" © Margaret Atwood. Printed gratis, and specifically for Representative Poetry Online, with permission of the author, as published in <i>Selected Poems</i> (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1976). Any other use, including reproduction for any purposes, educational or otherwise, will require explicit written permission from Margaret Atwood.