Sweetness

Just when it has seemed I couldn't bear 
one more friend 
waking with a tumor, one more maniac 

with a perfect reason, often a sweetness 
has come 
and changed nothing in the world

except the way I stumble through it, 
for a while lost
in the ignorance of loving...

someone or something, the world shrunk
to mouth-size,
hand-size, and never seeming small.

I acknowledge there is no sweetness 
that doesn't leave a stain,
no sweetness that's ever sufficiently sweet...

...Often a sweetness comes 
as if on loan, stays just long enough 

to make sense of what it means to be alive,
then returns to its dark 
source.  As for me,  I don't care

where it's been, or what bitter road
it's traveled
to come so far, to taste so good.

• Stephen Dunn