Margaret Atwood - Half Hanged Mary lyrics

("Half-hanged Mary" was Mary Webster, who was accused of witchcraft in the 1680's in a Puritan town in Ma**achusetts and hanged from a tree - where, according to one of the several surviving accounts, she was left all night. It is known that when she was cut down she was still alive, since she lived for another fourteen years.) 7pm Rumor was loose in the air hunting for some neck to land on. I was milking the cow, the barn door open to the sunset. I didn't feel the aimed word hit and go in like a soft bullet. I didn't feel the smashed flesh closing over it like water over a thrown stone. I was hanged for living alone for having blue eyes and a sunburned skin, tattered skirts, few bu*tons, a weedy farm in my own name, and a surefire cure for warts; Oh yes, and breasts, and a sweet pear hidden in my body. Whenever there's talk of demons these come in handy. ************************* 9pm The bonnets come to stare, the dark skirts also, the upturned faces in between, mouths closed so tight they're lipless. I can see down into their eyeholes and nostrils. I can see their fear. You were my friend, you too. I cured your baby, Mrs., and flushed yours out of you, Non-wife, to save your life. Help me down? You don't dare. I might rub off on you, like soot or gossip. Birds of a feather burn together, though as a rule ravens are singular. In a gathering like this one the safe place is the background, pretending you can't dance, the safe stance pointing a finger. I understand. You can't spare anything, a hand, a piece of bread, a shawl against the cold, a good word. Lord knows there isn't much to go around. You need it all. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12 midnight My throat is taut against the rope choking off words and air; I'm reduced to knotted muscle. Blood bulges in my skull, my clenched teeth hold it in; I bite down on despair d**h sits on my shoulder like a crow waiting for my squeezed beet of a heart to burst so he can eat my eyes or like a judge muttering about s*uts and punishment and licking his lips or the crowd their own evil turned inside out like a glove, and me wearing it. or like a dark angel whispering to me to be easy on myself. To breathe out finally. Trust me, he says, caressing me. Why suffer? A temptation, to sink down into these definitions. To become a martyr in reverse, or food, or trash. To give up my own words for myself, my own refusals. To give up knowing. To give up pain. To let go. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3am wind seethes in the leaves around me the tree exude night birds night birds yell inside my ears like stabbed hearts my heart stutters in my fluttering cloth body I dangle with strength going out of me the wind seethes in my body tattering the words I clench my fists hold No talisman or silver disc my lungs flail as if drowning I call on you as witness I did no crime I was born I have borne I bear I will be born this is a crime I will not acknowledge leaves and wind hold onto me I will not give in