Weighing In By: Rhina P. Espaillat

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Weighing In By Rhina P. Espaillat

• What the scale tells you is how much the
  earthhas missed you, body, how it wants you
  backagain after you leave it to go forthinto
  the light. Do you remember howearth hardly
  noticed you then? Others would rockyou in their
  arms, warm in the flowthat fed you, coaxed you
  upright. Then earth beganto claim you with spots
  and fevers, began to lickat you with a bruised
  knee, a bloody shin,and finally to stroke you,
  body, drummingintimate coded messages through
  musicyou danced to unawares, there in your
  dreaming

• and your poems and your obedient blood.Body,
  how useful you became, how lucky,heavy with news
  and breakage, rich, and sad, sometimes, imagining
  that greedy zeroyou must have been, that
  promising empty sackof possibilities,
  never-to-come tomorrow.But look at you now,
  body, soft old shoethat love wears when its
  stirring, look down, lookhow earth wants what
  you weigh, needs what you know