What Sadness Anywhere Is Sadness

^{—for Melissa}

What sadness anywhere is sadness where

I could just stand and walk to you      from sadness 

Go      home to you though I bring home my sadness 

What sadness there though I have felt sad there

Before      when I come home from far away

What sadness then      or from three blocks uptown 

My office      where I write this poem down

In a room full of the dimness that fills spac-

es anywhere where you are not      a film 

Obscuring every surface but it is a light 

Not shining      ever from surfaces

You are not near what sadness      where you might 

By being near reveal each thing for what it is

What sadness where each thing is whole

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“For a long time I’ve been trying to write a sonnet sequence for Melissa, my wife. But most of them have been and seemed too labored. This sonnet, however, I wrote quickly and happily while sitting in my office, thinking not of how I wanted to write a bunch of sonnets for Melissa, but only of Melissa.”
—Shane McCrae