Coming To This

Portrait of Mark Strand
Mark Strand 1934–2014

We have done what we wanted. We have discarded dreams, preferring the heavy industry of each other, and we have welcomed grief and called ruin the impossible habit to break.

And now we are here. The dinner is ready and we cannot eat. The meat sits in the white lake of its dish. The wine waits.

Coming to this has its rewards: nothing is promised, nothing is taken away. We have no heart or saving grace, no place to go, no reason to remain.

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