THE HYPERBOLIC REVIEW
Arithmetic
Bart Edelman
What are the chances
I would find you, Darling,
At that moment, on that day,
In that state, under that sky?
I know it’s remarkable,
But numbers don’t lie,
No matter how many times
I try to adjust fate—
Or whatever you call it.
There’s a system at work
I can’t exactly calculate,
Yet, perhaps, it’s a plus,
Minus these stray integers,
Always lurking an equation away.
Take our first date, for example.
You wore a red cyclone dress;
I bought you a blue corsage,
Just to commemorate the event.
How we ended up picking violets,
By the side of 13 Good Luck Drive,
Surely, is anyone’s guess.
It’s an odd or even game
We both choose to play,
Manipulating a digit here,
A percentage point there—
Anything to keep us together,
Multiplying every chance we get,
Never more than a table apart.
Bart Edelman’s poetry collections include Crossing the Hackensack (Prometheus Press), Under Damaris’ Dress (Lightning Publications), The Alphabet of Love (Red Hen Press), The Gentle Man (Red Hen Press), The Last Mojito (Red Hen Press), The Geographer’s Wife (Red Hen Press), Whistling to Trick the Wind (Meadowlark Press), and This Body Is Never at Rest: New and Selected Poems 1993 – 2023 (Meadowlark Press). He has taught at Glendale College, where he edited Eclipse, a literary journal, and, most recently, in the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. His work has been widely anthologized in textbooks published by City Lights Books, Etruscan Press, Fountainhead Press, Harcourt Brace, Longman, McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, Simon & Schuster, Thomson/Heinle, the University of Iowa Press, Wadsworth, and others. He lives in Pasadena, California.