Jemma Borg
The mathematician
The mathematician
From his window, he could see snow falling as the fractals
he couldn't see but which he relied on being there.
There were numbers lost at the end of his imagination
like countries so far away he'd never make it to them.
A shadow fell and then he heard a crack as of glass:
below, against the conservatory, an icicle
like an organ pipe or stalactite of diamond
had shattered into its pieces of supercooled clarity.
He thought of her skin: it was as seductive of light
as ice. It was impossible to talk to her.
On a sheet of paper, he began a series of equations:
numbers teaming up as water does, irresistible to itself
in the cold, numbers aligning like the tracks of a sledge
in unmeeting parallel. Then they writhed like meltwater.
He held a set of keys for locks that may not exist.
Or was he shadowing the word that set the world ringing?
The dusk was growing deeper. Houses on the other side
of the horizon began switching on their lights
and he also reached for his lamp. There were some things
of which he could be certain. The rest was love.
