Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale - Chapter 8 lyrics

The good weather holds it's almost like June
When we would get out our
Sundresses and our sandals
And go for an ice cream cone there
Are three new bodies on the
Wall one is a priest, still wearing
The black cassock that's been put
On him, for the trial
Even though they gave up
Wearing those years ago
When the sect wars first
Began cassocks made them
Too conspicuous the two others have purple
Placards hung around their
Nеcks: Gender Treachеry
Their bodies still wear the Guardian
Uniforms caught together, they must have
Been, but where? A barracks
A shower? It's hard to say the snowman
With the red smile is gone
"We should go back


" I say to Ofglen i'm always the one
To say this sometimes I feel that
If I didn't say it
She would stay here forever but is she
Mourning or gloating? I still can't tell
Without a word she swivels
As if she's voice-activated
As if she's on little oiled wheels
As if she's
On top of a music box, I resent this
Grace of hers i resent her meek head
Bowed as if onto a heavy wind
But there is no wind
We leave the Wall, walk back the way we came
In the warm sun "It's a beautiful May day
" Ofglen says i feel
Rather than see her head turn towards me
Waiting for a reply
"Yes, " I say "Praise be, " I add as
An afterthought mayday used to
Be a distress signal, a
Long time ago
In one of those wars we studied
In high school i kept getting them mixed up
But, you could tell them apart by
The airplanes if you paid attention
It was Luke who told me
About mayday, though mayday
Mayday, for pilots whose planes had been hit
And ships was it ships too? at sea
Maybe it was SOS for ships i
Wish I could look it up
And it was something from Beethoven, for
The beginning of the victory
In one of those wars
Do you know what it came
From? said Luke mayday?
No, I said it's a strange
Word to use for that, isn't it?
Newspapers and coffee, on Sunday mornings
Before she
Was born there were still newspapers
Then we used to read them in bed
It's French, he said from m'aidez help me
Coming towards us there's a small
Procession, a funeral: three women
Each with a black transparent veil thrown
Over her headdress
An Econowife and two others
The mourners, also Econowives
Her friends perhaps
Their striped dresses are worn-looking, as
Are their faces some day, when
Times improve, says Aunt Lydia
No one will have to be an Econowife
The first one is the bereaved
The mother she carries a small
Black jar from the
Size of the jar you can tell how
Old it was when it foundered
Inside her, flowed to it's death
Two or three months
Too young to tell whether or not
It was an Unbaby the
Older ones and those that die
At birth have boxes
We pause, out of respect
While they go by i wonder
If Ofglen feels what I do, pain like a stab
In the belly we put our hands over our
Hearts to show these stranger women that we
Feel with them in their loss beneath
Her veil the first one scowls at us
One of the others turns aside
Spit's on the sidewalk the Econowives
Do not like us

We go past the shops and
Come to the barrier again, and
Are passed through we continue on
Among the large empty-looking houses, the
Weedless lawns at the corner near the
House where I'm posted, Ofglen stops
Turns to me
"Under His Eye, " she says the right farewell
"Under His Eye, " I reply
And she gives a little
Nod she hesitates, as if
To say something more
But then she turns away and
Walks down the street
I watch her she's like my own reflection
In a mirror from which I am moving away
In the driveway
Nick is polishing the Whirlwind again he's
Reached the chrome at the
Back i put my gloved hand on the
Latch of the gate, open it
Push inward the gate clicks
Behind me the tulips
Along the border are redder
Than ever, opening, no
Longer wine cups but chalices
Thrusting themselves up, to what
End? They are, after all
Empty when they are old
They turn themselves inside out
Then explode slowly
The petals thrown out like shards
Nick looks up and begins to
Whistle then he says, "Nice walk?"
I nod, but do not answer with my
Voice he isn't supposed
To speak to me of course
Some of them will try, said
Aunt Lydia all flesh is weak
All flesh is grass, i corrected
Her in my head they can't help it, she said
God made them that way but He did not
Make you that way he made you
Different it's up to you to set the
Boundaries later you will be thanked
In the garden behind the house
The Commander's Wife is sitting
In the chair she's had
Brought out serena Joy, what a stupid
Name it's like something you'd
Put on your hair, in the
Other time, the time before, to
Straighten it serena Joy, it would
Say on the bottle
With a woman's head in cut
Paper silhouette on a
Pink oval background with scalloped
Gold edges with everything
To choose from in the way of names
Why did she pick that one? Serena Joy was
Never her real name, not even
Then her real name was Pam i read that in
A profile on her, in a news magazine
Long after I'd first watched
Her singing while
My mother slept in on Sunday mornings
By that time she was worthy of
A profile: Time or Newsweek it
Was, it must have been she
Wasn't singing anymore by then
She was making speeches she was good
At it her speeches were
About the sanctity of the home
About how women should stay home
Serena Joy didn't do this herself
She made speeches instead
But she presented this failure of
Hers as a sacrifice she was making
For the good of all around that time
Someone tried to shoot her and missed
Her secretary, who was standing
Right behind her
Was killed instead someone else
Planted a bomb in
Her car but it went off too early
Though some people said she'd put the
Bomb in her own car
For sympathy that's how hot
Things were getting
Luke and I would watch her sometimes
On the late-night news bathrobes
Nightcaps we'd watch her
Sprayed hair and her hysteria, and the tears
She could still produce at will
And the mascara blackening her cheeks
By that time she was
Wearing more makeup we thought she
Was funny or Luke
Thought she was funny i only
Pretended to think so really
She was a little frightening
She was in earnest
She doesn't make speeches anymore
She has become
Speechless she stays in her home
But it doesn't seem to agree with her how
Furious she must be
Now that she's been taken at her word
She's looking at the tulips her
Cane is beside her
On the grass her profile is towards me
I can see that in the quick sideways
Look I take at her as I
Go past it wouldn't do to stare it's
No longer a flawless cut paper
Profile, her face is sinking in upon it'self
And I think of those towns built
On underground rivers
Where houses and whole streets
Disappear overnight, into sudden quagmires
Or coal towns collapsing into the mines
Beneath them something like this must
Have happened to her
Once she saw the true shape of things to come
She doesn't turn her head she doesn't
Acknowledge my presence in any way
Although she knows I'm
There i can tell she knows, it's like
A smell, her knowledge something gone sour
Like old milk
It's not the husbands you have to
Watch out for, said Aunt Lydia
It's the Wives you should always try
To imagine what they must
Be feeling of course they will
Resent you it is only
Natural try to feel for them aunt
Lydia thought she was very
Good at feeling for other people
Try to pity them
Forgive them, for they know not what they do
Again the tremulous smile, of a beggar, the
Weak-eyed blinking, the gaze upwards
Through the round steel-rimmed
Glasses, towards the back of the classroom
As if the green painted plaster
Ceiling were opening and God
On a cloud of Pink Pearl
Face powder were coming
Down through the wires and sprinkler
Plumbing you must realize
That they are defeated women
They have been unable
Here her voice broke off, and there was a
Pause, during which I could hear a sigh
A collective sigh from those around
Me it was a bad idea to rustle or
Fidget during these pauses:
Aunt Lydia might look abstracted but
She was aware of
Every twitch so there was only the sigh
The future is in your hands, she resumed she
Held her own hands out to us, the
Ancient gesture that was both
An offering and an
Invitation, to come forward, into an embrace
An acceptance in your hands, she said
Looking down at her own hands as if they
Had given her the idea but there
Was nothing in them they were empty it was
Our hands that were supposed to be full
Of the future which could be
Held but not seen i walk around to the back
Door, open it, go in, set my
Basket down on the kitchen table the
Table has been scrubbed off
Cleared of flour
Today's bread, freshly baked
Is cooling on it's rack the kitchen smells
Of yeast, a nostalgic smell it
Reminds me of other kitchens, kitchens
That were mine it smells of mothers
Although my own mother did
Not make bread it smells of
Me, in former times, when I was a mother
This is a treacherous smell
And I know I must shut it out
Rita is there, sitting at the table
Peeling and slicing
Carrots old carrots they are
Thick ones, overwintered
Bearded from their time in storage
The new carrots, tender and pale
Won't be ready for
Weeks the knife she uses is sharp and bright
And tempting i would like to
Have a knife like that
Rita stops chopping the carrots, stands up
Takes the parcels out of the
Basket, almost eagerly she looks forward
To seeing what I've brought
Although she always
Frowns while opening the parcels nothing
I bring fully please, s her she's thinking
She could have done better herself she
Would rather do the shopping
Get exactly what she wants she
Envies me the walk in this house we all
Envy each other something
"They've got oranges
" I say "At Milk and Honey there
Are still some left" I hold out
This idea to her like an offering, I wish
To ingratiate myself i saw
The oranges yesterday
But, I didn't tell Rita yesterday she was
Too grumpy "I could get some tomorrow
If you'd give
Me the tokens for them" I hold out the
Chicken to her she wanted steak today
But there wasn't any rita grunts
Not revealing pleasure or acceptance she'll
Think about it, the grunt says
In her own sweet time she
Undoes the string on the
Chicken, and the glazed paper she prods
The chicken, flexes a wing
Pokes a finger into the cavity
Fishes out the giblets the chicken
Lies there, headless and without feet
Goose pimpled as though shivering
"Bath day, " Rita says, without looking at me
Cora comes into the kitchen, from
The pantry at the back, where
They keep the mops and brooms
"A chicken, " she says, almost with delight
"Scrawny, " says Rita, "but it'll have to do"
"There wasn't much else
" I say rita ignores me
"Looks big enough to me
" says Cora is she standing up for me?
I look at her, to see if
I should smile but no
It's only the food she's thinking of
She's younger than Rita the sunlight
Coming slant now
Through the west window, catches her hair
Parted and drawn back
She must have been pretty
Quite recently there's a little
Mark, like a dimple, in each of her ears
Where the punctures for earrings
Have grown over
"Tall, " says Rita, "but bony you should
Speak up, " she says to me
Looking directly at me for the
First time "Ain't like
You're common" She means the Commander's rank
But in the other sense
Her sense, she thinks I am
Common she is over sixty, her mind's made up
She goes to the sink, runs her
Hands briefly under the tap
Dries them on the dishtowel the dishtowel
Is white with blue stripes dishtowels
Are the same as they always
Were sometimes these flashes of
Normality come at me from the side, like
Ambushes the ordinary, the usual, a reminder
Like a kick
I see the dishtowel, out of context, and I
Catch my breath for some, in some ways
Things haven't changed that much
"Who's doing the bath?" says Rita, to Cora
Not to me "I got to tenderize this bird"
"I'll do it later, " says Cora
"after the dusting"
"Just so it gets done, " says Rita
They're talking about me as though I can't
Hear to them I'm a household chore
One among many

I've been dismissed i pick up the basket
Go through the kitchen door
And along the hall
Towards the grandfather clock
The sitting room door is closed sun comes
Through the fanlight
Falling in colors across
The floor: red and blue, purple
I step into it briefly
Stretch out my hands they fill with
Flowers of light i go
Up the stairs, my face, distant
And white and distorted, framed
In the hall mirror
Which bulges outward like an
Eye under pressure
I follow the dusty-pink runner down
The long upstairs hallway, back to the room

There's someone standing in the hall
Near the door to the room
Where I stay the hall
Is dusky, this is a man, his back
To me he's looking into the room
Dark against it's light i can
See now, it's the Commander
He isn't supposed to be
Here he hears me coming, turns, hesitates
Walks
Forward towards me he is violating custom
What do I do now?
I stop, he pauses, I can't see his face
He's looking at me, what does he want? But
Then he moves forward again
Steps to the side to avoid
Touching me, inclines his head, is gone
Something has been shown to me
But what is it? Like the flag of an unknown
Country, seen for an instant above a curve
Of hill it could mean attack, it could
Mean parley, it could mean
The edge of something
A territory the signals animals give one
Another: lowered blue eyelids
Ears laid back, raised
Hackles a flash of bared teeth
What in hell does he think he's
Doing? Nobody else has seen
Him i hope was he invading?
Was he in my room? I called it mine