Odd numbers are common

A few weeks ago, on Thursday January 17, Chicago poet Virginia Bell was one of the very fine poets who participated (along with me) at a reading in Takoma Park.  Bell (a former TP resident) paid tribute that evening to Anne Becker, one of her teachers, who also read -- and beautifully -- that evening.  (Many thanks are owed to Sara Daines and poet Martin FitzPatrick  who organize these monthly readings.) Although Bell did not read any mathy poems at the TP reading, I found this one in her new collection:

Odd Numbers     by Virginia Bell
 
They're really as common
as head colds or scalded
tongues.  Half of us
are odd.  We walk out
the door some days
feeling as if our mouths
have been shot through
with novocaine. Even
the celebrated chef
of molecular gastronomy
worries that his food
will lose stars.

"Odd Numbers" is found in from the Belly (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2012).