Arithmetic

I took the time to count the wrinkles

[the furrowed and steaming]

weaving from freckle to hooked nose

the blood under the skin

rivers of silk and childhood rhyme schemes,

the nucleus reflected in silver bifocals [heavenly contradictions].

Tell me of your wise heart

[never cease speaking] because I

have confronted the possibility

that ninety percent of what you say

is brilliant.

And if I absorb half of your brilliant

and add it to my simple one

that makes me fifty and one percent your brilliance.

They said if something is more than half

it rounds to the whole

and if I am fifty and one

that makes me round to

wholly you. [arithmetic fails me]

So tell me more

of you wise heart.

Let me count the lines

your speckled paper in my hands.