What She Weighs When She Trusts You

She cried about something at school—

I got the outline of it, the shape:

a girl who said a thing, a lunch table,

the particular architecture

of being eight and excluded.

I said the right things, probably.

I said the things that sound right.

She went quiet. We drove home.

She fell asleep before we got there

and I carried her in from the car,

her arm hanging loose at her side,

the back of her neck damp,

her breath slowing against my shoulder

like it had decided something.

I stood in her room too long.

Just held the weight of her.

She doesn't know yet

that the best I had was words,

that the words were borrowed,

that I'm still using words

I don't fully own.

She trusts the arms.

She trusts the carrying.

I stood there in the dark

holding fifty-four pounds

of a person who thought I knew

what I was doing,

and I laid her down,

and I pulled the blanket up,

and I stood there a little longer

than I needed to.