sweetness

just when it has seemed i couldn’t bear

one more friend

waking with a tumor, one more maniac

with a perfect reason, often a sweetness

has come

and changed nothing in the world

except the way i stumbled through it,

for a while lost

in the ignorance of loving

someone or something, the world shrunk

to mouth-size,

hand-size, and never seeming small.

i acknowledge there is no sweetness

that doesn’t leave a stain,

no sweetness that’s ever sufficiently sweet ....

tonight a friend called to say his lover

was killed in a car

he was driving. his voice was low

and guttural, he repeated what he needed

to repeat, and i repeated

the one or two words we have for such grief

until we were speaking only in tones.

often a sweetness comes

as if on loan, stays just long enough

to make sense of what it means to be alive,

then returns to its dark

source. as for me, i don’t care

where it’s been, or what bitter road

it’s traveled

to come so far, to taste so good.

-stephen dunn