Marsh-swimmer, mud-bather,

wearer of gravity’s ponderous necklace—

I find my sign in the zodiac,
under the moon’s dry-erase board

and its palimpsest of calendar dates
going all the way back to the time

the great mathematician leaped
out of his bath and ran naked

into the streets, struck
by the epiphany of his own

inherent buoyancy— And I wonder
what volumes of gold or silver

or ink I have displaced,
what weights and currencies

attach to every pull and turn
on the yoke or rudder. Hold

back your hand from the mill,
you grinding girls
, wrote Antipater

of Thessalonica; sleep on
for the river has coaxed the water

over the toothed wheel so it churns
like a team of oxen; and your labors,

though long, are somewhat eased.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Scrivener.

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