Worry Lines

Worry Lines

by Lawrence Mark Lesser

At our next infant wellness visit,
the pediatrician plots
our only child’s weight on
paper ruled
by increasing bands
with concavity ill-suited
for extrapolation.

Kilograms or pounds,
it’s 40th percentile, down
from the 60th percentile.
Having delivered well
into “advanced maternal age,” my wife
frowns (“we aren’t feeding him enough!”).
I say it just fell

half a sigma and
we’re still well
within the fat
part of the bell curve –
it’s normal –
this won’t be one
of our worries.