Weights & Measures by Francesca Leader

Weights & Measures

I still don’t know how
You can compliment a girl
Without infecting her,

Say she’s perfect
Without seeding worry
Of when she won’t be

Anymore, span her
Waist with hands
Amarvel at its minuteness

Without encoding
Lovability as the ability
To fit inside something

Else, submit to
Subsumption. I still don’t
Know how you can

Expect a girl’s soul
Not to snag on BMI charts,
Measurements, bodyfat

Ratios, celebrity weight
Loss and “Half My Size” stories,
Because they’re

Everywhere—number-shaped
Briars ensnarling all
Paths to self-acceptance—

Or tell her to inure,
Ignore, be tough but soft,
A paradox, like vanity sizing

That makes her crave
The labels that anoint her
A 2 and damn the brands

That brand her a 12,
As if she could be “S”
And “L” at once,

Survive the truth
Of weighing & measuring how
Much she matters in inverse

Proportion to how much
(Always too much) matter
She comprises, for bodies

Most loved are the
Bodies that least exist.
I still don’t know how

You can call a girl
Beautiful because she’s thin
Or ugly because she isn’t

Without engendering
Pathology, a fixation sickness
On what is visible

Instead of what is whole.

*

Francesca Leader has poetry published or forthcoming in Abyss & Apex, HAD, Broadkill Review, Stone Circle, The Storms Journal, and elsewhere. Her poems have been nominated for Best of the Net (2025) and Best Spiritual Literature (2025). Her debut poetry chapbook, “Like Wine or Like Pain,” is available from Bottlecap Press. Learn more about her work at inabucketthemoon.wordpress.com.