Misery is not the same thing as sadness. Misery
Belongs to the history of the world; even the mineral world
Invokes misery: stone in the dark, buried deep under stone.
I worry about going into the ground when I’m lying on my bed alone.
Lonely misery is commonplace
And misery is written on every older face,
Even the handsome ones having affairs to remember.
Sadness isn’t misery. Sadness is thinking about September
A little sadly, in a slightly sadder spring
Because the calendar—a practical invention—
Turned device to make reflective sadness a thing,
Like the phonograph record, a thing
Used by the recording industry, which found, accidentally,
If a miserable woman, in a pool of light, will sing,
Sadness can be boiled down from misery,
As when the distiller makes good whiskey
From plants, fermented—which once grew
Towards the sun, happy, exactly like you.
Did you ever hear sadness like Billie Holiday’s before?
Or do you buy it like eggs, at the corner store?