1.
Tectonics shift in the cupboard next to my head.
A new variable in the algebra of the room:
the NPR announcer’s voice, the gush of water
from the faucet, a crackle and a crash.
2.
Algebra: Arabic,
from al-jabr meaning “a reunion
of broken pieces”
3.
My sister is a nurse. She tells me
hospitals are edifices of algebra.
Each bed contains
an equation to be solved.
4.
All of my drinking glasses: why did they enter
my life only to unleash their algebra
one night in February? They are sketches
of tigers mid-leap. Still able to scratch.
The fragilest of problems to solve.
5.
Funny to think through all of history,
Pandora’s box winds up being an old cupboard
hanging,
secretive as algebra, on my kitchen wall.
6.
My husband is a custodian. He grabs a broom and dustpan
and begins to sweep. “You are fine,” he repeats.
I imagine gluing all those pieces back together,
tasting wine sipped from algebra.
7.
Outside, algebra is the bulb of the traffic light
and the ventilator in the ambulance whizzing past.
It is the oak tree
smiling at the world it created.
8.
My heart is a mathematician. It quickens,
nourished by the algebra
it drowns in. A-positive, B-negative. No,
I do not know my type.
9.
The letters in algebra
are unknown variables.
The brackets under shelves
are unknown variables.
10.
I prefer the washrag and plate in my hands
to any algebra underfoot:
the solidity of x
to the inferred question of y.
11.
My brother is a welder,
soldering the algebra in metal
with a white-hot torch.
12.
Variable: Latin
from variabilis meaning “likely to bend”
In algebra, “having no fixed value”
13.
When the kitchen floor is clear of variables,
the internet supplies more drinking glasses.
My kitchen will contain an algebra equation
I finally understand.
Northwest Journals 