It is a habit by now:
testing death with a fingernail,
or cupped in a palm,
feeling its shape and heft.
You inspect it
like your mother
in the grocery store, prodding
apples
she
does not want to buy,
her fingertips pleating like tissue
against their skins.
It does not weigh as much
as people say.
Sometimes it is no heavier
than a beef
heart
carried from the butcher’s
in dripping paper.
Other times
it is light
and yielding as the loaf of bread
pressed in the
arthritic crook
of your mother's arm.
It is never as heavy as rage
or
lack of love.
And yet, when
put on the scale,
it is always too much.
You
put it back, shaking your head,
the way your mother, clucking,
returns a bruised fruit to the crate,
puts on her gloves,
and
pushes her cart away.