The Thing Is

The Thing Is

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,

its 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