Calculus

By Catherine Wing / Issue 9

There’s a kind of nothing

you can add something to.

A zero becomes a circle.

A bowl takes an apple

a nest a robin’s egg.

The napkin ring sums the table.

A crown rounds the head

which caps the rest of us

body as remainder.

Milk is measured in a spoon

and light is bound

within its bulb. Every mouth

is edged with teeth.

The O we make we breathe

a cycle wheeling sun

around-go-merrily-we

time’s hem and girdle.

CATHERINE WING was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and attended Brown University before earning her MFA from the University of Washington. Her collections of poetry include Enter Invisible (2005), nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Gin & Bleach (2012). Her poetry has appeared in such journals as Poetry, the Nation, and the Chicago Review and has been featured in a number of anthologies, including Best American Poetry (2010).She teaches at Kent State University and with the NEO-MFA, the nation’s only consortial program in Creative Writing.