Five Mathematical Poems by Timothy Wojcik

Mathematics IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Start with one body, and one sky. End with the sky in the body, and one sky.

The organs are in the middle of the sea. The sea is in the middle of the flock of loons. The flock of loons is in the middle of the enormous heart, mathematically speaking.

An enormous heart covered in stalagmites. An enormous void. An enormous chug of black smoke. The trees.

Mathematics IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

The sea is made up of many arms and fingers. You are invented by the sea. Your brain: a floating jellyfish.

Mathematically speaking, you are made up of parts. But inside the parts, there is no infinity. There are no woodpeckers, not even little ones.

A wharf covered in stormy petrels is a type of rule. The feeling of the moon, disemboweled.

Mathematics IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

An appropriate change of heart. An appropriate change of spine, ravine.

Mathematically speaking, the fluids from the birds can fill the ravine and form a slick river. Down the river is the wide-open mouth, and inside the mouth the undulating epiglottis.

A rule: your feet fall off in the sand. Your arms drift off in the wind. Your torso explodes into a patch of zinnias.

Mathematics IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Mathematically speaking, the body isn’t hollow. Your halves, whorled like a drift of seaweed, is a type of rule.

Instead of lungs, buffalo, right? A lifetime the exact shape of the entire earth.

Ice in the sea melts at a certain velocity. Your fingernails have an exact magnitude. An open door. Look, nothing through it.

Mathematics IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

A coat made out of thousands of fingers. Texas made out of thousands of mirrors. Finches made out of pure radium. These are rules.

Mathematically speaking, Eurasia covered by a fine handcrafted rug. And your feelings vomited all over.

Watch this: I am very hard at work. Watch my mannequin arms. Follow my darting sparrow eyes. I am working very hard.

Timothy Wojcik is a literary agent and Pushcart-nominated writer living in Queens, New York. 

Image: theconversation.com

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