This thoughtful poem by versatile poet Mary Peelen appeared in the Winter, 2016 issue of The Massachusetts Review.
Variable by Mary Peelen
The x could have been
anything at all,
the sound of wind chimes,
a gong, a choir, a cantor,
a mermaid, a schoolmarm,
cathedral bells.
Instead—what a lark—
it’s laughter.
in the park across the street
has habits of hilarity
disciplined as a cleric,
ha exhaled in eight pulses,
stress on the third and fifth,
never the slightest flux
in rhythm, volume, or pitch.
His breath orders the world
into countable sets,
number expressed as a verb.
It calls her back.
Scientist-poet Mary Peelen lives in San Francisco and Paris and has an amazing list of accomplishments. I first met her in an 2019 interview of by mathematician-poet-teacher-editor Gizem Karaali in The Adroit Journal.
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