The first time I met you, we were surrounded by calculators.
Right-handed metal school desks,
Students running on the honors track.
I was one of them.
Notes taken legs crossed hands folded
Laboring to live logically
Past driving present protecting
Some unreadable truth.

But at night, I’d play Chopin,
The keys a black-and-white cat.
Washing dishes, I’d be with Wordsworth
Luxuriating in a garden of wildflowers.
When the storm rumbled I walked
Outside and wrapped my arms around
A tree that’s since been cut down.

In the desert of unrepentant classroom lights, I latched onto

The very definition of you,
As a curve might approach a hard line.
Not knowing I was Ophelia revived

I held fast to the sublime, that visible potential,

Extending myself

Infinitely
Reaching for the unreachable.
You were concept tragic, exquisite epitome,
Yearning most revered. You’ve haunted me

Deliciously.

Now, I find myself
Floating on the curve
Between swims and after treading in place.
Salt water is what tears are made of
And so I’ve made an ocean.
The line to land on is so close,

Breath becomes the wind

That causes little stones to take a leap.

Asymptote, my love for you is tempered by proximity.
Pointillism purified the drift of functions unknown.
My eyes on the horizon,
I accept questions in clouds:
Am I moving in half steps toward the dream of whole steps?
What sets the rate of change and gives variables a name?
How do we equate?
And what of accidentals? Am I one?
Is relationship meant to be solution or discovery?

All these words are a presence, a testament to life.
In a quiet, cosmic landscape I voice them

And then listen for echoes,

Cadences.