Guinevere, Thirteen Reasons to Be Ardent About Euclidean Geometry
- Guinevere, Thirteen Reasons to Be Ardent About Euclidean Geometry
i.Because in an airport café he sipped from a chalicecurved like a wrist while his steed’s tail swishedthrough the suds of someone’s beer.
ii.Because he graspedthis drink as one grasps the wristof someone they plan to lead down a long hallway.
iii.Because on the white plane of the love notethat summoned me there—since palmed damp—exactly one line trailed off into the margins.
iv.Because we were camouflaged by the fatigueof the knights soon shipping out and bluntedby the ache of their families.
v.Because there was a wargoing on but he called ita crusade. [End Page 277]
vi.Because in the airport café his shoulder bladesmade a scalene and all our angles added upto a flat line.
vii.Because now, of course, he is in some othercity: we are a pair of coplanar lines,everywhere equidistant.
viii.Because there isstilla war going on.
ix.Because in the airport caféthose knight were killing time, their ladiestalking too loudly for a Tuesday afternoon.
x.Because given a planein space, there always exists a linenot on that plane.
xi.Because I didn’t want himto get onthat plane.
xii.Because when his steed stampedand snorted, we finishedour drinks and left congruent.
xiii.Because given space, I can namethe plane of his lower back—glorious rhombus! [End Page 278]
Shelley Puhak’s second poetry collection, Guinevere in Baltimore, was selected by Charles Simic for the 2013 Anthony Hecht Prize. Her first collection, Stalin in Aruba, was awarded the 2010 Towson Prize for Literature. Her poems have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Kenyon Review, Missouri Review, Ninth Letter, and many other journals and anthologies. Shelley is an assistant professor of English at Notre Dame of Maryland University in Baltimore.
