Somehow I'd imagined
compassion enough
to go around—thinking
it would be given readily
by all, tawny and full of light
like the sage honey
I found Friday for a friend
it would be worn next to the skin,
like the blue agate beads
strung for me by a Polish artist
in mountains across the world
it would accompany the needy,
shaggy and immense
like the Great Pyrenees we've met,
the service dog who attends
every local opera from Puccini
to The
Pirates of Penzance.
Instead,
this pitiless wing shadow
that has been cast over us.
This staggering
absence and desecration
that I must nevertheless
take up and hold
against my raw-chafed skin,
gently as possibility,
as any broken thing.
—Christie
