The Weight of Love by John Delaney

After his breakfast, he comes back to bed
to rest on my che​st, all ten pounds of him,
folding his front feet under, head forward
like the figurehead of his bread-loaf ship,
rising and falling on my calm-sea breaths,
eyes focused on his destination: me.
So it is, at different times of the day,
he’ll find my lap to take a nap, anchoring
safely in my bay, all ten pounds of him.
Sails furled, meaning limbs licked clean and stowed
below in their berths, he’ll plot a new course
that may take him round the household world.
Then, coming about, homeward bound again,
he’ll dock his precious cargo: all ten pounds.

---

After retiring as curator of historic maps at Princeton University Library, I moved out to Port Townsend, WA, and have traveled widely, preferring remote, natural settings. Since that transition, I’ve published Waypoints (2017), a collection of place poems, Twenty Questions (2019), a chapbook, Delicate Arch (2022), poems and photographs of national parks and monuments, and Galápagos (2023), a collaborative chapbook of my son Andrew’s photographs and my poems. Nile, a chapbook of poems and photographs about Egypt, appeared in May 2024.