Figuring
Lubbock December morning, no mountains,
no view. I fill a cup hot and thinking I’ll graph
the asymptote toward absolution,
find the thought point where the lines called you
and memory of you meet and cross
and continue on. Overwhelmed by wind
that dissolves all data again, afternoon I bike
the trajectory of scatter, faster.
Fractals of desert bush on flat fields.
Abacus of leaves, mathematics of missing
your face, imaginary number.
The sum of these studies is rain.
If clear, if cloudless, a plot of stars
tonight would stake their might beyond
the meaningless mountains of this mind.
Instead, a sky’s lid will bank the gaze within.
The slopes are steep and imagined as God.
Another x eludes. In a dream you are.