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.