Sum smile

Sum smile

The day after yesterday we talked

We spoke about figures
half moons and wedges
Those people use in maths
Will you read for me?
I plead.

Play along. Translate these hieroglyph
daydreams so I can hand over
my beautiful, clay sphere
and listen to the square roots mumble
their way out of your lips.

They’re more, less or equal
to many words I know
To the power of prepositions
of direction, time and place.
A caret here, a chevron there.

I hear the clay crackle
even though we tread slowly
even though we mouth them carefully
and each slice is thoroughly measured
as you smile and I keep score

The scratching sounds familiar
I feel so close to you,
Who don't seem to take me very seriously
but are still equally amused.
What on earth are you doing?

My fingers are covered in red dust
the sum still fresh
drying in the sun. You laugh-
(that’s not how math is done)
and clear the tab.

When you're not looking
I secretly go over the sum again.
Just in case. But it's no use.
It's always less or equal than.
But you still smile
at my rhymes between brackets
as I integrate and differentiate
and predictably fail in the process.

quarter notes, eighth notes,
half smiles and the binomial distribution
into polys as I turn to you
and trace your smile, all the way
from the curves in your ears
to your gray lit eyes

that trace mine.
That's some smile you got there,
I wince. One that is still more
of that less or equal than.

I feel empty in my stomach.
Please help me set it straight.
I would just love to go over this sum with you
I lean on your shoulder
I draw it out on the palm of your hands
with my fingers in a huddle.
I add up what I heard so far
and paint my argument for you. 

You smile at me, so warm:

That's not how you do maths.
Dry clay sticks to my nails
You shake your head.
Can’t you see them?
The half moons and wedges? 

I turn to you, once more.
That really is
some smile you got there.
I stare at it
I go over that sum again.
Over, and over, and over again. 

But I know,
you're good at this.
You're faster at this.
We already know
Play along, you say.