I believe in it like I believe in the soul
of the mouse who died in my driveway
or was carried there by some stray. What happens
to the pleasures of a half-rotted body?
The pleasure given by recognizing a shape
still enough to sketch on graphed paper?
I took a picture to make my phone’s home screen
while the car was warming up. I went to work. I know
I felt it once, a long-lost synapse that can’t be
measured, though the instrument exists—
it must exist. A scientist on the radio said, We don’t
really use time to measure time, talking about space,
the absence of gravity’s steady temperament. Maybe
that’s just how it is: we give things names, and they shrug.
Maybe I’m waiting for my true name. My true body.
Until then, I use the ones my mother gave me.
A body tucked under a name like a weighted blanket.
I try to pin it to a precise moment—it dissipates
before it appears. We don’t really use bliss
to measure bliss, I say, here in the other extreme
where gravity is relentless. Where everything falls still.
Quiet as a mouse.