HCF & LCM
keen god of pink skinned thunder happy with probing erections parting my
blanket into the soiled trajectory of failed epiphany my parents have left
my poems for good the other day I try teaching a boy how the lowest common
multiple came to be he asks is there an easier way later ice-cream
on our tongues melts away the mediocrity of my lesson the day I moved in here
police swarmed the flat next door a love triangle gone horribly wrong
isosceles lives bleeding down the laughing edge of a knife sticky flesh written
all over its fate it was the first moment I realized all movies are made
from life and all lives are made from four-chambered shivers most days it takes
me incredible seconds of courage to celebrate truly the success
of others if fondness is born in this bottomless warren is it juvenile
to yearn for the measure of its depth? if I can have here your ravishing
appetite for company I will be so content to be lonely nights get sinister
when a hand rests over a breast and no wreath is made in the ear only squawking
of the crow's flight over the neighboring graveyard somewhere in a Mumbai
local train a man sneezes inside a compartment locked by the definition
of population density where one square foot equals one lumen of pearl
and years later in a Manhattan apartment his son is lucky to escape a raging fire
I fathom this thinness of film between geographies by calling it faith or
sometimes an excellent documentary things go south all the time letting us know
why gratitude bears teeth marks of anger on its wrist often at home I find
spots of green coriander chutney on my ageless denim like swatches of a rustic
conscience like a signature of tidal ripple or fine praise perhaps our highest
common factors? to my great relief the boy I teach exclaims oh I get it now
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BENEFIT(S) OF DOUBT
a caterpillar's dying wish lacing a green blade or a goat's tough
hoof nail clicking fine across a land of tufts by the law
of conservation of energy all of it equals the erratic sum
of each small remorse I feel equals dread of the next delicious
consequence in such equations you need not solve for x there is
no x just you and me mundane awash in the complex
composition of polluted air exposing the grain of polka nights
through satiated ripples how a third of satisfaction
is the warmth of fuzzy pain on second thought I have a flight
to catch so many places I went because the ritual of passing
through airports soothed irritation in the walls
of my bladder when I flip involuntarily my washroom
switch it leaks amperes like hormones at once I grasp
the sky's dizziness from thunder would you call blood a scarlet
current? a gift of ions we guzzle from an ocean
of bodies? for most of the war my grandfather lived
underground for company: two handsome Dobermans
when the war ended the dogs died they couldn't
deal with the broken light above even pupils find
it difficult to constrict when they stay dilated
for too long once I went to watch a football match
Brazil v England at a friend's place soon I found the arch
of my calf muscle in his dog's mouth at first he licked warm
but disappointed at the taste of adolescent brine he slipped in
as an afterthought his meat tearing canines
despite the fleshy initiation I suffered I think he found
my salt memorable eventually any desire gives way
to a constellation of pale scars their texture mellow
after being creamed sleek into wings of butter last week
someone I once loved got married on the coldest night
of the year and under the blanket I slid late
into another's arms to catch the contagion
of immediate relief hoping I would wake
red faced or blue in time with an appetite
deserving of the hotel's gorgeous breakfast spread
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While HCF & LCM is relatively self-explanatory, benefit(s) is a f(x) kinda situation with benefit being a function of s. Math lives on in myriad ways, buried in our lives.
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