Measuring Up

You’re calibrating piss

with a ruler

Used to be rain

Now it’s me

Now it’s water

Now it’s just another stream

down the cheek

to the body

To the street

You’re weighing feathers again

One pound of fluff

against your solid mass

I saw the smile you once wore

(probably stolen?)

upon the face of an old woman

where it belongs

In her rolling chair

with her lifeless breasts

blackened exquisite teeth

atrophy leggings

She is left to this world in isolation

No visitors

No family

No society

No commonplace courtesy

afforded her by the bustling

hustlers of this building

She passes me once per night

Not for the candy machine

But the journey

Her mobility imprisoned

Liberty measured in inches

Yet she pauses and smiles at me

as if the world is still tolerable

just having someone see her

breath while she still can

And the strength of dignity

this fading beauty retains

is worth a thousand

Baywatch bodies

Worth a hundred of your

calculations

which at the moment to me

seem designed of triffles

She is a preceptor fading

with more nobility than any sun

Crippled with my own limitations

I am measuring her miles

with a broken yardstick gone forever

while you look of absently angry

filing your nails unimpressed

counting your momentary sorrows

with each awful scrape of

sandpaper

I have seen God

and unfortunately

like most divine visions

by the time you look to see

She’ll be gone forever

I wonder, does she smile

knowing  I’m your problem

not hers?