Member Poem

Do you know, she asks,

do you know how hard it is to draw a line

in polar coordinates?

I look down at her math homework. Sure enough,

a line of pen wobbles between two

hyperbolic arcs.

The system supports concentric and

curved. Concepts that are not perturbed ellipse

or bright gleaming tangent

beneath the midnight sun

shake on this uneven ice

transected only by widening circular

demarcations.

I tap the pen against my lips. Yes, well.

How am I supposed to explain the non-Cartesian

duality of the cardioid and the soul?

She looks at me, expecting something profound.

This surface, I say, is like the top of the world.

(Turning too fast for me to explain,

or more like protons and electrons,

which resolve in spaces near zero degrees

into simpler exhibitions of their fact.)

What? she says.

I was just asking for a straightedge.