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Kiss Over Zero

George David Clark

anything over zero is zero
anything over one is itself

a bed over zero
is a funhouse mirror aimed

at a cloudy sky
a sky and its clouds over zero

a storm over one
is an infinite storm

a night over one
is a kiss over zero

and the minute hand eating its tail
is a red ear on a wet pillow

the memory of laughter
is a lamp over one

one inhales before one sighs
a lamp over zero is zero

the hole in a satin sheet
slowly ate up the yellow

till splitting the hem
the hole was unleashed

like a kiss
a long kiss over zero

George David Clark is the author of Reveille (University of Arkansas Press, 2015), winner of the Miller Williams Poetry Prize. He edits 32 Poems and lives in Washington, Pennsylvania.

About George David Clark

Themes

Desire

Language

Math

About this Poem

“I teach a course on contemporary poetry in translation and recently one of my students shared an interesting interpretation of a line in Bei Dao. She read ‘over’ as shorthand for ‘divided by,’ and while I wasn’t convinced Dao intended or benefitted from such a resonance (does the Chinese preposition share that mathematical connotation?), both the conceit of division and the difference between math’s equals sign (exact) and metaphor’s ‘is’ (messy) seemed rich to me. Anyway, this gave me a roundabout way of approaching a scene and a feeling that I couldn’t get at directly.”
—George David Clark

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More by this poet

Ultrasound: Your Picture

—Henry Thomas Clark, 10/7/14

We’ve framed an ultrasound
of you and Peter

holding hands
(or almost) in the womb,

your moon-bright arms
crossed in a black balloon

with week, and weights,
and heights in millimeters

penciled on the side.
We say it’s good

that he, at least, was with you
when you died,

that unlike us
you’ll never know the why

George David Clark

2018

Loud Outs

 No one lofts a loud out
             to the left field 

fencing with its ads
             for Meacham’s Auto

and McClintock Paints.
             There’s no bravado

at the plate at all.
             No southpaw deals

his slider for a strike
             no one appeals,

since no one lent
             the anthem her vibrato.

This afternoon the high,
             off-tune legato

in the stands was only
             wind on steel.

But even though the team’s
             due back in town

tomorrow evening,
             though a storm is spinning

this way now, and though
             t

George David Clark

2018

Poems

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Kiss Over Zero

More by this poet

Ultrasound: Your Picture

Loud Outs

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