Stuck

This is where the hardest work begins:

to see that no is not a long perhaps

(the light so late discovered now is lost);

to watch the pain recede, but still

with sick discomfort pine for it,

whose searing edges

sliced away the excess, forcing choice:

stand now, or cease;

to dread what then remains --  

the hungry ache of grief

that seeps, a wellspring, through each seal …

There is a rising here.

That’s what this poem’s for.

The hardest work’s the trudging through

the hours and days of losing,

and the building up again.

Forgive me. Tonight

the hardest work’s too hard.

Tonight my mind is stuck on that perhaps

back at the start, and like a cry

caught in my throat

it won’t let me read further.