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For the Sake of Strangers
by Dorianne Laux

No matter what the grief,
its weight, we are obliged
to carry it. We rise and gather
momentum, the dull strength
that pushes us through crowds.
And then the young boy
gives me directions so avidly.
A woman holds the glass door
open, waiting patiently for my
empty body to pass through.
All day it continues,
each kindness reaching toward
another—a stranger singing
to no one as I pass on the path, trees
offering their blossoms, a child
who lifts his almond eyes
and smiles. Somehow
they always find me, seem even
to be waiting, determined
to keep me from myself, from the
thing that calls to me as it must
have once called to them—
this temptation to step off the edge
and fall weightless,
away from the world.

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