Bliss Quest

The thing is

to love life

to love it even when you have no

stomach for it, when everything you’ve held

dear crumbles like burnt paper in your hands

and your throat is filled with the silt of it.

When grief sits with you so heavily

it is like heat, tropical, moist

thickening the air so it’s heavy like water

more fit for gills than lungs.

When grief weights you like your own flesh

only more of it, an obesity of grief.

How long can a body withstand this, you think,

and yet you hold life like a face between your palms,

a plain face, with no charming smile

or twinkle in her eye,

and you say, yes, I will take you

I will love you, again.

Ellen Bass