after Ocean Vuong’s “The Gift”
3.14 3.14 3.14
Their minds begin to wander.
So we try again:
3.1415 3.1415 3.1415
a curl, a braid, a dreadlock—cut
from the diameter
& branded on their throats.
Even now, the cast iron jewelry
will not leave their wrists: synthetic resin,
ethylene glycol, manganese, terephthalic acid, limestone cement & sweat gleaming
through their orange
DOC: 3.14159 jumpsuits.
2π 2π 2π
Every misspoken breath
is condensed
on the discoid lens
of the substitute.
Their name, recited off
a diploma & abandoned
with the mispronounced:
absent* absent* absent* absence.
He says he cannot see
or read stories
but neither can they.
So the rest pick up the pen,
& write till the chairs stay put
& write till the pages taste of salt,
mucins, lipids, & 1,500 proteins.
We cry together.
2πr 2πr 2πr
Lower your voice, he says
yet the room murmurs, chambering the carbon light bulb dancing
above their heads, whining for
replacement. While quartz-halogen rotating beacons rust terror
red and shackle blue.
Hands up, as the bell rings, &
books take flight
down
striking the earth. Because
dead birds
can’t fly.
2πr/d 2πr/d 2π—the pen breaks
The radius bursting its belly
as dark ink seeps
through Geometry 2/Section 4.7
Don’t move, he says, as he picks
the bullet cone of metal
from the transparent carcass, slides it back
between their fingers
only to be lost in a plastic bin
Again. & again
I see it, the curl, braid, & dreadlock ensconced
in the tethers of the rug. interwoven & stepped on
by the souls of our feet.
π π π
