Weight without gravity

aaa1
There is no weight without gravity.
But matter and weight have come
To mean the same things:

What keeps our feet on the ground, what pulls
At clouds to return to sea, why we fear
The fall.

We have assigned them, too
To other things: meaning
and burden.

Weight no longer belongs to the body.

aaa2
My mother's weight keeps her pinned
To this hospital bed, chained
By our fears, by all she has to fight.

She is her body now more than ever.
The pressure of her hand in mine
A collection of mere molecules--

Matter acted upon by gravity.
And I waver at the edge of You and
This is not you, I tell her.

The weight of our worry pulls the water from her eyes.

aaa3
I do not fear the words dead, weight.
The part of my mother I wait to waken
Weighs nothing and means all.