My clan consists of accountants.

Living in the abstract.

Living in a world of Math.

I hate to travel

very far down the line

of thinking where everything

ends up made of Math.

It’s like admitting

there’s not much more to

the best poems you’ve ever read

than ink marks on paper.

a ma      f equati

      ze o            o

 n

 s under

            l

         y             ike

        ing it all l        we’re

playing some sort of comp-

licated multi-dimensional Tetris.

How to differentiate between

what seems in the world and

what I know in my head.

This labor a kind of Calculus,

which I failed as a youth,

but the poor and kindly teacher

gave me a C.

They told me

God prefers checkers

to chess. Some days

I’m like, okay, sure.

Others, I think: not likely.

Steve Henn wrote American Male and Guilty Prayer (Main Street Rag 2022 & 2021), Indiana Noble Sad Man of the Year (Wolfson 2017) and two previous books from NYQ Books. He teaches in a public school in northern Indiana.