The Evolution of "Poet's Choice"

From the editors of The Washington Post:

"With its change to a Web-only feature, 'Poet's Choice' is evolving. We'll be asking a different poet each week to share with us a poem he or she has written. Mary Karr, who has been our eloquent columnist since March 2008, starts us off on this new format."

From Mary Karr:

The heartbroken so often write poetry, but there's damn little in poetic history about heartbreak's recovery. For me it's a spiritual process in which I reconnect with the human family, and that's done through prayer. I also adore reading small, intensely morbid stories by Isaac Babel. "Konkin" opens with a group of Red Cavalry soldiers chopping up Poles, then "hugging each other with hatchets." Such were my starting points when I wrote ["Recuperation from the Sunk Love Through the Aegis of Christ and Isaac Babel"].

Read 'em 'n' weep.