Sometimes, my tender library
Serves as a psychologist’s clinic
Leaving an ever shocking gift:
Wastepaper basket with crumpled tissues
Like a nest brimming with sad eggs
My sanctuary anointed
With an offering of tears
Wet pain left to dry
Wordless truth.
The tissues absorb the stories
When they are refined
Into impersonal secretions
That have been flowing
Since the beginning of time.
Yet the pain is absorbed
By a vast world
That is big enough to take it
And there is our comfort
And our transformation.