Weights and Measures

We waste a good ten minutes
bullshitting about albumin and performance
status and a smudge no larger than

a thumbprint that could make all the difference.
All of these measurable things. Faint
flickers against more-darkness

and not a shade closer to
the heart of it: to making her wedding
or not.

And thank goodness the room is dim
as even unfinished sentences, dashes dangling
mid-breath—Even the atmosphere

this evening is sore and significant.
Everything leaving marks.
Such scars as I should understand

and yet my eyes still slip outside, as if
the answer lies in blackness
behind the curtain of the ridge.

And later, I am rocking off to sleep
my baby daughter, every edge of her
collapsed against me

such heavy limbs and quaking
breaths no match
for such a fragile frame.

And through the ruffled drapes, the yawning
gravities of all those bleary stars are still
no measure for this weight.