My einsteinicity

 

Let y equal any number of fathers.

Let x equal the numberless planets.

Let y minus x equal long nights of fog

and let x plus y equal hydra & incubus.

If y is > x, why do all my convictions gape?

If x is > y, does “father” just mean nightcap?

When x ÷ y, we set sail on a windjammer.

When y ÷ x, watch for the banshee, the jinn.

Or let x be replaced by a midsummer night

and y by—well, you can never replace y but

by morning y will lollygag near half-moons:

Odysseus sailing to Ithaca, mildew as it rots.

And a b is no mere theory of relativity: it is

helter-skelter materfamilias, Ma Barker, and

Rebekkah, the mother who deceived. Not

Sarah who couldn’t conceive nor the Mother

of all of Nature: the black tern, the kittiwake;

plants ornamental, baroque; the cumulous,

the nebulosus; and yet, mother-of-pearl and

ice-cold, tiger’s-eye and monkey in the middle.

Let’s say a b is a % of all the love in the world

or synonymous with do you love me now that

I can dance? Let’s agree that a is the salsa or

paso doble and b is always always the beguine.

Lynne Thompson