Said Out Loud

She called it like a number on a gate,

no lift or drop in how she said it.

I said okay and stood there straight

and neither of us thought to dread it.

One sixty-two. She typed it in.

I stepped back from the scale's cold plate.

The paper gown crinkled thin.

I smiled the way you smile and wait.

It isn't much. I know it isn't.

I've told myself since Thursday twice.

But something in the way she wasn't

looking up stays with me. Precise—

the clipboard. The screen. The ordinary

transaction of my body being

weighed and logged and necessary

and no one noticing me seeing.