Margaret Atwood, "Orpheus 1" (1976-1986)

You walked in front of me,

pulling me back out

to the green light that had once

grown fangs and killed me.

I was obedient, but

numb, like an arm

gone to sleep; the return

to time was not my choice.

By then I was used to silence.

Though something stretched between us

like a whisper, like a rope:

my former name,

drawn tight.

You had your old leash

with you, love you might call it,

and your flesh voice.

Before your eyes you held steady

the image of what you wanted

me to become: living again.

It was this hope of yours that kept me following.

I was your hallucination, listening

and floral, and you were singing me:

already new skin was forming on me

within the luminous misty shroud

of my other body; already

there was dirt on my hands and I was thirsty.

I could see only the outline

of your head and shoulders,

black against the cave mouth,

and so could not see your face

at all, when you turned

and called to me because you had

already lost me. The last

I saw of you was a dark oval.

Though I knew how this failure

would hurt you, I had to

fold like a gray moth and let go.

You could not believe I was more than your echo.