How Tall Is Love?

By Pierakis Pieri

It used to be a cradle’s length,

no more than arms could hold,

a lullaby between two eyes,

a hush, a hand, a fold.

Then love grew up to cupboard knobs,

to jumping for the light,

to tracing marks upon the wall

that whispered every night:

"You’re taller now, I see it too."

Love measured in a stare,

in shoelace knots and backpack straps,

in who could reach the air.

Some years it shrinks, and hides away

inside a coat too small—

or tucks itself in quiet notes

you leave down in the hall.

But just when you think love has stopped—

it stretches past the moon,

into a memory you touch

by leaving someone room.

How tall is love?

It’s never still.

It bends, it breaks, it mends.

It grows through grief,

and back again,

then taller still in friends.

It’s not a height you reach and stop,

nor something you outgrow—

but hands held out from age to age,

in every kind of snow.

"About this much," the heart still says,

no matter when you ask—

then spreads its arms again, again,

an ever-widening task.

By Pierakis Pieri