Trigonometry, Two Weeks Before Winter Break
~~~
None of this makes sense
-- or rather, it feels like it's on the cusp of making sense, but if I think about it too closely
it stops.
I miss the intuitiveness of algebra.
I miss the ignorance of childhood.
Caitlin sits next to me sometimes.
She's tall and bird-boned.
I dreamt last night she could fly,
took my hand and tugged me into the air
a floating easier than swimming
no resistance to pull through
just sun and sky.
She's late today:
flushed as she sinks into her chair,
bound by gravity, fishing
through her backpack, flinging
gum and Tylenol onto her desk, then
a ruler,
two pens,
a pocket calendar --
She huffs. Her hair
flies from her face, carried
by her breath, the way
she carried me last night.
Is this what you need?
I lean across the aisle, hand open,
pencil perched on my palm,
sparrow on a leafless branch.
She smiles,
lips spreading like wings.
She touches my hand when she takes the pencil.
It's warmer than it was in my dream
and alive
and I'm up in the air again
like I was last night
but it's more than sun and sky.
It's her smile, too,
and the way her eyes shift color like
a blue jay's wing flapping
in and out of shadow.
All of this makes sense.
~~~
