Disintegrating Calculus Problem

A dramatic clue lodged in a rockface. Set in a shimmering sound belt slung around the grasses. Collections of numbers signify a large sum, a fatness that cannot be touched. Numbers are heart weight in script. Calculus means a small pebble pushed around maniacally. Binding affection, instead of fear, to largeness.

Ideas are peeled into fours and pinned on the warm corners of earth to flap in a wind. Wind, the product of a swinging axe that splits the sums. This math flowers on the tender back of the knee. An operatic leaf in the tree uses a secret algebra to perforate dense void. The void behaves as a porous slice of rye bread spread thick with salted butter.

Food is braided into the body. On the watchface of the lake, a felled tree trunk keeps protracted time. Circling vaguely like the day does. The circle is dented by the dense tear of a woman without the thing she needs. A loudness about need has a reverse effect. The loud need loses mass. This new thinned need is braided into a story archived in a dark library inaccessible to the public.

The tear weighs the same as a loaf of rye bread. The circle is made of birthday wishes glued together with morning sun mucus. Whatever is hidden is pluckable in time, even sound and meaning. Wind deserves a trophy for revealing this elegantly.

Copyright © 2021 by McKenzie Toma. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 21, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.