Jemma Borg
How it is with the circle
How it is with the circle
Actually it's just a line, but all points
are equidistant from the centre without
distortion and that's what makes it special.
Contained by and within that line are all
the attributes of circularity: the infinite
exactitude of π, a disc too correct
to be a moon or an eye, though sure enough
to be a wheel, a curve that is not
a skull or a country's anxious border,
but that untroubled arc the compasses draw:
the black lead circle, stark and unbreached.
But we haven't come nearly far enough.
What does a circle become if you puncture it?
All lines and roads and scars. Did Euclid
consider this? Arcs rejoining to make circlets,
their untethered balloons, for a moment,
carrying rainbows, as soap bubbles do.
And the insides - all that was circle -
seeping out into the circumambient air.
What of desire? The body is drawn
towards the shape of its perfect star:
to be something else, to be something more.