Scale

My weight is four whippets, two Chinese gymnasts, half a shot-putter. It can be measured in bags of sugar, jam jars, enough feathers for sixty pillows, or a flock of dead birds but some days it’s more than the house, the span of Blair Athol Road. I’m the Crooked Spire warping itself, doubled up over town. I measure myself against the sky in its winter coat, peat traces in water, air locked in the radiators at night, against my own held breath, or your unfinished sentences, your hand on my back like a passenger touching the dashboard when a driver brakes, as if they could slow things down. I measure myself against love — heavier, lighter than both of us.