I can’t grasp it, but I am so very glad.
—Franz Wright, “A Word for Joy”
The weight of love,
it is sometimes,
to the ounce,
the weight of a man
as he rests
his body on yours.
Though if there is sorrow
or sickness in his thoughts,
the gravity can flatten you.
And sometimes it’s
heavier than that, the weight,
as if he first hems his pants
with lead and then
finds his way to your arms.
And sometimes it’s heavier
even than that, as if
the very air in his lungs
has millions of pockets,
all of them filled
with dull
gray stones.
And sometimes
the weight of love
is no weight at all,
is less than a blade
of orchard grass,
less than a note
hummed in quiet rooms,
less than a memory,
less than the scent
of lilac or rose,
more like the light
that lands on the hand
and makes it open
to hold what never
can be held.