I can only measure the size of things in how wrong I was before
I thought I knew big love until my son was born,
seven and a half weeks 
premature
barely but breathing but strong enough still to steal the pen from the nurse who 
dared to take his score

A tiny thing with
dark hair &
bottomless eyes &
an iron grip &
the cutest, loudest sneeze & …

I fell to my knees in the old hospital parking garage because there were so many tubes keeping his little body going &

sobbed myself inside out 
until the person who knew 
the size of love
couldn’t keep existing, because the world they knew was gone—replaced with something

Endless

I thought I knew the size of grief before my husband died
the beast that lurked on the other side 
this  mourning tide 
that threats to pull us under
to pull asunder? 

Would be massive, I thought

But it is just a tiny thing
Dark, and smooth
A pebble, warm 
Gripped in our hands 
But heavier than you can imagine, it’s the darnedest thing deferring …

Differing from the cataclysmic unmaking  I taught myself to expect &

What a quiet injustice, some days
But then sometimes, a miracle, 
That the person who thought that grief would destroy them

Keeps going.