The friend

By Marge Piercy b. 1936 Marge Piercy

We sat across the table.

he said, cut off your hands.

they are always poking at things.

they might touch me.

I said yes.

Food grew cold on the table.

he said, burn your body.

it is not clean and smells like sex.

it rubs my mind sore.

I said yes.

I love you, I said.

That’s very nice, he said

I like to be loved,

that makes me happy.

Have you cut off your hands yet?

Marge Piercy, “The friend” from Circles on the Water: Selected Poems of Marge Piercy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982). First appeared in Hanging Loose 5 (1968). Copyright © 1968, 1982 by Marge Piercy and Middlemarsh, Inc. Used by permission of the Wallace Literary Agency, Inc.

Source: Circles on the Water (Alfred A. Knopf, 1992)

Biography

Marge Piercy was born in Detroit, Michigan, into a working-class family that had been hard-hit by the Depression. Piercy was the first member of her family to attend college, winning a scholarship to attend the University of Michigan. She received an MA from Northwestern University. During the 1960s, Piercy was an organizer in political movements like the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the movement against the war . . .

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