after Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello
1
Math is mostly equations: one plus one, two plus two, plus…
also formulas, so many designed variables—
to keep someone alive, calculate, add & subtract the costs.
2
What if hands pull down stars, guide them inside the round belly?
What if this is how a spirit dives, twists into a body?
What is built up from bones? Fingernails. Skin. Flesh animated.
3
Grandmother’s fingers tightened around my bundled form,
(a thing) spitting, begging, for warmth from her hunched over
indecisive back—she knew the math would not compute.
4
This is where I’ll learn how to cast the rod to find the fish,
or skim the water to chase Jesus bugs, walking on the surface
by some trick of tension, & balanced perfection. Keep count.
5
What does this form do that others don’t? I’ll force the issue
of Korean poetic form, composing these sijo. In this way,
I’ll be closer to my genetics, my bloodlines—strands fraying.
6
This is where I’ll learn how to skip stones across how many
lakes? Making circles, again, hearing the sound of stone on water.
Oars cut cleanly through its flat surface—stars, so many stars.
7
In the heat she’ll fan my round face, place a bottle to my lips
flick flies off my head, & try to conjure up my dead mother’s
face, show me a smile I’ll never remember, nor this thick night.
8
Always those hands keep plucking stars from the heavens, make
constellations inside bodies, make more mothers. I see that form
& origins are stories—I’m all those mathematical distances.
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