For Jenny
The
sum of these events is a string
of sadness. I was always a wreck when
it came to numbers, needing fleshy
fingers and hot sandy toes to calculate
the dividing factors.
I
never really believed in zero.
I
felt instead the infinite rush of wild integers
that pressed us all forward. I was blind
to the roundness of that place
that begins when the heart stops.
Your
father never was and over and over he
explained the equation, as if to a child.
It's only now that I find the truth of it all--I was a
child--naive to the pain and heartbreak
that occurred when your number
simply dissolved and became finite.
Crystal King is a working writer living in the Boston
area. Currently she's engaged in several writing projects, including
writing a full-length novel, co-editing a new literary arts journal
titled The Plum Ruby Review (www.plumrubyreview.com),
and developing creativity tools for writers as her thesis project for
her M.A. in Critical and Creative Thinking at UMass Boston.
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