by Julia Wendell

My daughter sends impressions
of one cell, 30,000, then 3 million—
the size of a raindrop, bottle cap, acorn,
credit card, kumquat, peach.
Fist or potato, tennis ball or squash,
I’ve spent a lifetime
examining what’s like but isn’t,
as if a thing has more meaning
by close enough, but not quite.
How much is 37 trillion cells?
A stack of bills
68 miles high.
That’s only one trillion.
Now bigger than a baseball,
coffee mug, rutabaga, leek,
my hand, my breast,
the child of my child.

Julia Wendell’s sixth collection of poems, The Art of Falling, was published by FutureCycle Press in 2022. Another collection, Daughter Days, will be published by Unsolicited Press in 2025. She is Founding Editor of Galileo Press, lives in Aiken, South Carolina, and is a three-day event rider. She can be found as JuliaWendell.7 on Instagram and on Facebook.