OVIDARY

OVIDARY

It doesn’t add up
never adds up

no simple algebraic sequence
formula to string us along

was playing an ancient game
with sacred pieces
imagining them
split into armies
of wasps
versus bees

a metamorphosis
which poet Ovid himself
would have been
singularly proud of

proving
    it is the angle with
which you align
   from which you write
which
changes everything

when
   as atoms ourselves, we
thought atoms
lived
   and loved
   and worked
within
that classical system

and then
       we saw things differently,
saw ourselves
differently

watched the sunlight split
refract grow
so
   diffuse

suggest
   a different way of
seeing everything

taking
a fresh look
changing everything

and so I say
rewrite
   the poem
if you truly must

do
the research
open the book

go into
exile, assume the default position, dodge
excesses of power
and political will

so
   tell me about
kitchen alchemy
on the farm

how the brain breeds opulence
as it
    thinks itself as myth

so much before us
            well and truly fleeced
golden fleeced

finally
    the numbers
according
to which

it multiplies, divides, defines
extending in every direction
to meet the hallmarks
of geometrical progression

the art of love
in every configuration.