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Jackie Sheeler: Split Geometry

May 16, 2011 by PBQ

When twenty miles of sea and city
stretched itself between your door and mine, we lived

inside each others’ skin, compressing
distance into exotic equations

unsolvable outside the act of love.
I moved closer, and you moved away–

space reversed in the lens of an insane
camera, inside shed the skin of outside

and all the mathematicians lost their minds.
Now Buddha’s afire on the windowsill,

slide-rule sparkling between his plaster teeth,
and I’ve misplaced the blank relief of sleep.

Wakeful, I walk the edges of night to my office:
ninety minutes, four-and-a-half miles–

a static, trustworthy, tiresome passage.
A distance that does not change.

Filed Under: contributors 69, Issue 69, Poetry, Poetry 69 Tagged With: Contributors 69, Jackie Sheeler, Poetry, Poetry 69

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