CURSE OF THE MATHEMATICIAN'S WIFE
(WITH APOLOGIES TO BRUCE BOSTON)

Calculating with exactitude
the definitive parameters
of his connubial existence,
the mathematical genius
considers for the nth time
the exquisite irony of marrying
a woman whose "math anxiety"
was nearly phobic in its intensity.

Perhaps the sexuality index, s,
appearing as it did
in the numerator of his equation
(where, raised to a very high power
indeed, it compensated 
for various fault factors
in the denominator), had much 
to do with it. But man
does not live on bed alone,
and the import of other variables,
equally complex, does not escape him.

He considers the possible solutions,
real and imaginary,
all neatly arrayed on the foolscap
of his cerebral cortex,
and realizes with dismay that,
despite their abiding love
for one another, he and his wife
had chosen asymptotic pathways 
through life's topography.

Always getting closer and closer,
the chasm between them
growing smaller and smaller forever,
they would never quite coincide.
He smiles, recognizing a good thing
when he sees it. Besides, not being
numbers, they could always
reach across the gap

- Keith Allen Daniels

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Keith Allen Daniels is
the publisher at
Anamnesis Press

All rights to this poem belong to its author.

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