Measure of Doubt by Cathryn Essinger I am halfway through a jelly donut, closing in on the part I like best, the dog watching, measuring the amount left with what is to come— her bite, the last one, held between thumb and forefinger, the calculation so reliable that she never waivers or gives up hope, unlike human measures which are always based on doubt—a thumb, a handspan, the average length of the foot of the first sixteen men entering church on Easter Sunday, or something more official—the distance between the King's wrist and elbow, or from his nose to the tip of his outstretched arm. Or perhaps you favor science— the half-life of any given molecule measured against nothing and never divided by zero. I prefer the bees who give no thought to distance as they travel trajectories known only to the sun, or birds, who never study their shadows, but risk their lives on the turn of a leaf, while I page through the calendar, gulp my coffee and grab the leash, so the dog and I can be promptly elsewhere before the clock strikes two.
Cathryn
Essinger's most recent book, My Dog Does Not Read Plato, will be
published this fall. Her first book won the Walt McDonald First Book Award from
Texas Tech University Press. A third, Eulogy for a Big Blue Ball, is
currently looking for a publisher. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Quarterly West,
The Southern Review, New England Review. She teaches writing classes at Edison
Community College in Piqua, Ohio.
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