poem

 Tuesday Morning

Tuesday morning. Driving my daughter to school. Passing the house with the grim reaper mailbox. We stop at Dunkin Donuts. But she doesn’t like chocolate frosted doughnuts with sprinkles anymore. A glazed is fine, like she’s some anonymous commuter drone. She stares at her phone. What about the math test, I ask, do you want to review a few things before we arrive? No dad I don't she says. But you said you were worried about it. No dad, she says. I’ve got it dad. No dad. Dad, no. Rather than turning up the music to its previous volume I try again to tell her about the algebra of all bodies how each of us has some corresponding variable expression that can be plotted on a multidimensional coordinate plane along with dozens of partial differential equations that account for the change that accrues over time. That this equation cannot be solved is beside the point. It is enough to know that very smart people have been working on it for many years and will not stop because it will prove that we are, if not here, then at least somewhere, anywhere in the vast universe, at least for a short while, that the space we occupy is real. The Hodge Conjecture and Riemann Hypothesis are lesser priorities, or at least I hope so. I see in the rearview mirror that her AirPods are in her ears and her finger is rapid-firing the volume button like a trigger. In any event, it’s only Tuesday. The weekend is a long way off.

6/30/24