Sunday, October 6, 2013

In Summation

Abacus snicking, I calculate
The accumulated total of
Teary pillows, full of
Feelings, each busy feeling.
They number too many.
Salt sleep soaked sockets
Subtract and divide me.
Propped up by mounds
Of pillows, suffocation seems
The neat simple solution.
Oh
Two = an irrational number.

The mathematical problem is
I swore off love,
Properly. The dramatic, repeated
Hand-on-heart kind
That somehow sticks, stickily.
I choked it effectively.
Now the integers integrate,
All the series correlate,
All the factors escalate.
And
Two = a complex number.

When the equation balances,
The formula replicates. Replicates.
The pillows are dry;
The vow, once given,
Cannot unravel, it loops.
Love eschewed, a cycle.
Freedom lives in freedom,
It inhabits the mind.
Now
Two = an imaginary number.

He flickers at first
Parenthetical on my periphery,
This piece of Greek.
I ignore, obdurately ignore,
Turn my pillow, collude
With its cool, but.
The random pattern entrances.
So
Two = a real number.

I carry the bracketed
Cluster of symbols, allow
The additional clause. Arcane
Words and pillows dissolve,
Sequences converge, joy multiplies.
The mesmerise is infinite.
Yes.


Two = a prime number.

This poem was first published in The Weary Blues journal by New Binary Press in December 2013. It was my first publication.