Back Stairs

Marriage is not
a house or even a tent


it is before that, and colder:


the edge of the forest, the edge
of the desert 
                    the unpainted stairs 
at the back where we squat 
outside, eating popcorn


the edge of the receding glacier


where painfully and with wonder
at having survived even
this far


we are learning to make fire 




Habitation, by Margaret Atwood