Paul Hostovsky

The Weeping

For a long time it was just a trickle,
and it came the way people come trickling in
who are late to a great gathering
of people, silently,
self-consciously,
holding the door, holding
the breath, letting it
close softly behind before the next
jagged inhalation opened it
again. And again. Then it grew
louder, like a great gathering of people
churning and swelling and overflowing
the small enclosed spaces chosen especially
to contain it: the car, an empty
stopped elevator, a bathroom with
the door locked, the door
of the throat opening, the great
sobs forcing it open now like a
birth, like an actual person being born into a world
full of people, in a very small room
with only one person.