To Love
Life.
To Love it even when you have no
stomach for it,
and everything
you've held dear crumbles like burnt paper in your
hands,
your throat filled with the silt of
it.
When grief sits with
you,
it's tropical heat thickening
the air,
heavy as water,
more fit for gills than
lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh,
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think: how can a body withstand
this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms,
a plain face.
No charming smile, no violet
eyes.
And you say yes, I will take
you.
I will love you
again.
Ellen Bass