It Rains, You See

Gwendolyn MacEwen

Reader, I do not want to complicate the world
but mathematics is tragic, there is pathos in numbers;
it's all over, boys- space is curved,
you are hungry and your hunger multiplies by hundreds.

in your first shuddering temple of chalk
in the slate days you taught numbers
to jive under the complex chewing pencils; you talked
darkly of the multiplying world, and your fingers

hunted for braille like urgent forms.
you g outside and now it rains,
and the rain is teaching itself its own name;
it rains, you see, but Hell it comes down cuneiform.

Carol Wilson