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Safiya Sinclair

@safiyasinclair.bsky.social

779 followers 97 following 0 posts

Author of HOW TO SAY BABYLON, memoir (@simonschuster & @4thEstateBooks) | Poet | Born & raised in Montego Bay, Jamaica | Booking: @shipmanagency.bsky.social

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Reposted by Safiya Sinclair

Maggie Smith @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

Because maybe you need this poem as much as I do.

The Thing Is
BY ELLEN BASS

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