The absolute value of x is x
sometimes
usually
always?
This is as true today
as perhaps eons ago
I’ll admit that I have trouble
with x
It’s like a tall, masked Zoro
but is it just a letter
or an imposter for a number?
If a number line reaches into infinity
is it a place worth going
if I could be twenty-two again
on the number line
or would I find myself at ninety?
What is the absolute value of 90?
It would likely be ninety in the bones
in the remnants of strong teeth
in the soft corners of bent memory
What is the absolute value of -1
is it just one?
Just one heart-shaped candy box
one blind date
one failed date
one less to worry about
What is the absolute value of five?
Five letters
five letters that spell black
black for the color of the hoodie
a boy is wearing that says,
“God is a woman”
the exact value of God
coming from three letters
Perhaps it is best not to go
skipping around on a number line
teetering into infinity
in both directions
I loved this one, Lana, meandering through math and time and space and what gives it all value. The -1 part stuck with me after, and the black hoodie, also the part about infinity turning you “ninety in the bones / in the remnants of strong teeth / in the soft corners of bent memory.” 🙂
Thanks Joan! You know, when you send the English Lit person in to tutor for math, this is just what happens. A similar thing occurred one time when I was trying to write a Sci-Fi story. It turned into a story with water vampires.
Nothing like a change of subject to shake things up a little, LOL. My dad was a math teacher for 30 years, and would have felt just as lost if he had to tutor poetry students, counting syllables and trying to think of something that rhymes with hypotenuse. 🙂
Oh yes, I bet he would have. On the other hand, I suppose it gives us a chance to work the other side of the brain, haha! But man, rhyming with hypotenuse, that would be formidable.