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