Spring in the Igloo
Margaret Atwood
The sun had been burning for a long time
before we saw it, and we saw it
only then because
it seared itself through the roof
We, who thought we were living
in the center of a vast night
and therefore spent our time
hoarding our own heat
Were astonished by the heat
I made this house once
because I wanted the
coldest season, where you could be
if only by comparison,a
substitute for sun
but the earth
turns for its own reasons
ignoring mine, and these human
miscalculations
and so we are drifting
into a tepid ocean
on a shrinking piece of winter
(for two so frozen
this long in
glacial innocence
to swim would be
implausible)
with ice the only thing
between us and disaster
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