The Cats Will Know by Cesare Pavese
"You too will make gestures. / You’ll answer with words— / face of springtime, / you too will make gestures."
Myth by Natasha Trethewey
"Again and again, this constant forsaking: / my eyes open, I find you do not follow."
Any Common Desolation by Ellen Bass
"You may have to break / your heart, but it isn’t nothing / to know even one moment alive."
Good Bones by Maggie Smith
"Life is short and the world / is at least half terrible, and for every kind / stranger, there is one who would break you
what they did yesterday afternoon by Warsan Shire
"later that night / i held an atlas in my lap / ran my fingers across the whole world / and whispered / where does it hurt?"
What’s Broken by Dorianne Laux
"Last summer’s / pot of parsley and mint, white root / shooting like streamers through the cracks."
“Why Is This Age Worse…?” by Anna Akhmatova
"In a stupor of grief and dread / have we not fingered the foulest wounds / and left them unhealed by our hands?"
The Leash by Ada Limón
"But sometimes, I swear I hear it, the wound closing / like a rusted-over garage door, and I can still move / my living limbs into the world without too much / pain
The Falling by Jane Hirshfield
"When feeling finally comes it is / that falling, matter breaking away / from air" — Jane Hirshfield
The Poet with His Face in His Hands by Mary Oliver
"you can / drip with despair all afternoon and still, / on a green branch