Margaret Atwood - Handmaids tale lyrics

To be a man
Watched by women it must be entirely strange
To have them watching him all the
Time to have them wondering
What's he going to do
Next? To have them flinch when he moves
Even if it's a harmless enough
Move, to reach for an ashtray
Perhaps to have them sizing
Him up to have them thinking, He can't do it
He won't do, he'll have to do
This last as if
He were a garment, out of style or shoddy
Which must nevertheless be put on
Because there's nothing else available
To have them putting him on, trying him on
Trying
Him out, while he himself puts them on
Like a sock over a
Tool, onto the stub of himself
His extra, sensitive thumb, his
Tentacle, his delicate, stalked slug's eye
Which extrudes, expands, winces
And shrivels back into himself when touched
Wrongly, grows big again, bulging a little
At the tip, traveling forward as
If along a leaf, into
Them, avid for vision to achieve
Vision in this way, this journey
Into a darkness that is composed
Of women, a woman
Who can see in darkness while
He himself strains blindly forward
She watches him from within
We're all watching him
It's the one thing we can really
Do, and it is not for nothing: if
He were to falter, fail, or die
What would become of
Us? No wonder he's like a
Boot, hard on the outside
Giving shape to a pulp of tenderfoot
That's just a wish i've been watching him for
Some time and he's given no evidence
Of softness but watch out, Commander
I tell him in my head i've got my eye
On you one false move and I'm dead
Still, it must be hell, to be a man
Like that it must be just fine
It must be hell it must be very silent

The water appears, the Commander
Drinks it "Thank you
" he says cora rustles back into place
The Commander pauses, looking down
Scanning the page he takes his time
As if unconscious
Of us he's like a man toying with
A steak, behind a restaurant window
Pretending not to see the eyes watching
Him from hungry darkness not
Three feet from his
Elbow we lean towards him a little
Iron filings
To his magnet he has something we don't have
He has the word how we squandered it, once
The Commander, as if reluctantly
Begins to read he isn't very good
At it maybe lie's merely bored
It's the usual story
The usual stories god to
Adam, God to Noah be fruitful, and multiply
And replenish the earth then
Comes the moldy old
Rachel and Leah stuff we had drummed
Into us at the Center give
Me children, or else I die
Am I in God's stead
Who hath withheld from thee the fruit of
The womb? Behold my maid Bilhah she
Shall bear upon my knees
That I may also have children by her and
So on and so forth we had
It read to us every breakfast
As we sat in the high school cafeteria
Eating porridge with cream and brown
Sugar you're getting the best, you know
Said aunt Lydia there's a war on, things are
Rationed you are spoiled girls, she twinkled
As if rebuking a kitten naughty puss