Virginia poet Bernadette Geyer has a new (2013) poetry book, The Scabbard of Her Throat -- and I have been exploring these engaging poems of family and fantasy. And finding among them this mathy poem, "Odds":
Odds by Bernadette Geyer
Eighty percent of all plane crashes occur in the first
three minutes or in the last minute of the flight.
The odds of winning the lottery are 1 in 18 million
but you can't win if you don't play. In Peru,
between 2004 and 2007, 4 out of 10 murdered women
were killed by their husband or boyfriend.
The chances of being injured are greatest in your own
home. If you are driving in your car and you see
two cars crash into each other up ahead, you should
drive toward the exact point where those cars crashed.
Odds are they will be elsewhere when you get there.
This is called "driving into the accident."
The doctor tells you he diagnosed you early, so your odds
of survival are good. Very good. But then you cross
the street, get in your car and drive home to the step stool
with its wobbly leg. The box of good china on the high
shelf in the closet. Your lover, who welcomes you home
with a kiss. All the knives in the kitchen.
The Scabbard of Her Throat is winner of The Word Works' 2012 competition for publication in the Hilary Tham Capital Collection.
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