Whole Grains and Honey

Maybe if it stops raining, I'll stop
hurting so much. It's been a week
of water and of loss. I've managed
to eat breakfast, but now my body
rebels;
it doesn't want honey and whole
grains, only you.
I have to go on eating, sleeping,
walking in the wet.
My life can't stop because I want you,
though
it feels as though it could. I'd leave
my body sitting here, with coffee cups
and crumpled
napkins-leave you, and Bach softly
in the background, and the white cat
who greets me
on Sacramento Street, and the days
when whole grains and honey taste like
the world's
gift. As long as I remember joy, I can't
leave
loss. If I can last through the rain, I
may find myself
again warm and dry and grateful for
this world.

Whole Grains and Honey, by Rebecca Radner

Photograph: Wheat in the Wind, by Janice Stiles-Boults