poem

 Zero

Zero is ridiculous, shouldn’t exist

If we skipped right over it

It would never be missed.

Add it or take it away

It’s always the same sum

No difference.

Any temptation to multiply

Leads to fascist annihilation

And no one bothers

Trying to divide.

We all have enough 

Undefined as it is.

So what is it?

Why do we need it?

Zilch nil nought

As if a name could add

Something to nothing

Like the way we refer

To the intractable silence 

Of the universe as God

Or a moment of self forgetting

As an act of love.

Look at all these leading 

Zeroes before the decimal

Point of your actual life. 

What happens when I’m gone?

Will you speak of me

Or not-me?

10/3/23