Emotional Mathematics: C-

Precisely calculated calculus that once described
the curves that coalesced into the form you
might have labeled “life” now does not illuminate
one slice of what absorbs you: you’ve disinterred

your rulers, pencils, compasses and foolscap
all to no avail: whatever aptitudes you thought you
had for such precise examinations fail – you’re
caught back in an antique schoolroom with a slate

and chalk and lunch pail and an apple rotting
for an absent teacher – and when you muse about
how you might reach her you discover you’re a baby
in a crib, drooling on a bib, experiencing your

first vagaries of sentience. Apprehension strikes
you dumb: always out of whack with the directness
of a cause presumed to link to an effect: like bad
lip-synching to a song: something’s always wrong.

Yet there it is: experience – a little like the oddness
of the New York City flower stand you passed
just now purveying irises in almost-Fall.
Incalculably and anachronistically purple, tall.


.