Mark Strand

Coming To This

by Mark Strand

We have done what we wanted.

We have discarded dreams, preferring the heavy industry
of each other, and we have welcomed grief
and called ruin the impossible habit to break.


And now we are here.

The dinner is ready and we cannot eat.

The meat sits in the white lake of its dish.

The wine waits.


Coming to this
has its rewards: nothing is promised, nothing is taken away.

We have no heart or saving grace,
no place to go, no reason to remain.