Fibonacci Series

by þíxíé 

 

The pigment from the brick walk has seeped

into the snow, making  it red with rust, and I think

of how  blood cells look under a microscope,  hemoglobin

thick and bright, platelets crystalline. And how you painted

me, like Picasso’s  Nu De Dos, but fuschia and

kelly green, curled around myself like a snail’s shell. 

 

There is a pattern that makes it spiral, Fibonacci’s

golden ratio, found  in the proportions of the pads

on a cat’s foot, the head of the sunflower, and the petals

of the pinecone. In Notre Dame Cathedral the architaecture

follows these outlines, and all the music played, corresponds,

 

an arch on the wall, a sopranos’s ascent. Scientists say

Beauty is found in the laws of geometry, the ability

to predict conformity.  But I am a poet,  and I find beauty

in the four leaf clover,  rare for its direct opposition to the rules,

and in you, an artist who purposely paints hands like claws, hungering

to escape the page. And everyday scientists�?voice fall flat

for the lack of what is found in raw verse, traces of ruddy snow,

broken bottle smoothed by sea and an old woman’s tremelo.

---

Call me Gretel

by þíxíé 

 

 

I tramp down King Street, the bleakest alley

in a metrical town, cast into eternal night.

 

Behind me, I leave lipstick rings, plum waning

moons on cigarette butts & discarded coffee cups.

 

In a dank alcove, there are armless men beckoning

 me with their pelvises, catcalling with the balls

 

of their feet. I rush over crests & falls, my knees grate

the pavement. The men cast lots for my clothes.

 

A woman with witchy black hair appears above me,

clothed in a white coat. She says, “Do not be afraid.�?

 

I consume the pills she offers. My body moves in helter-

sketler circles, I scat the tune of “Amazing Grace�?/STRONG>

 

at double speed. On the alley’s wall appears a prophecy,

written in gasoline by my own hand, the words form

 

a rainbow. Women quickly ring, so clement, so loving,

so sweet, taking my shoestrings, belt, & cross.

 

My body descends a second time, and I reflect on the iridescent words,

Nobody, not even God, can save you from the oven.

 

CEH

 

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