New Poetry by Paula Reed Nancarrow

Q.E.D.

- for Lilabet

I cannot prove the triangles congruent

though they sit neatly inside the circle

their sides a radiant X: Isosceles twins.

A bow tie. A butterfly. 

You sit at our dining room table

plotting it out for me: 

This is given.             That is self-evident. 

Your chestnut hair tumbles over your face

hiding your acne. Tiny holes remain

in the table’s surface from my old

Spirograph. In the quiet privacy 

of your mind, you see the logic of shapes. 

My noisy brain makes twins rubbing

noses.  A bow tie.  A butterfly. 

It is all simple deduction

except for what we begin with: 

A point has no space.  

A line has no breadth.

A plane has two dimensions 

and goes on forever.

Angles are inclinations. 

Chords incline toward what is 

demonstrated. Ergo I am given

you. Over and over, 

like Anne Sullivan at the pump,

you spell postulates into my hand 

until suddenly - fresh and clear and cold –

Elegance overwhelms me.

- © Paula Reed Nancarrow 2020

Paula Reed Nancarrow is a poet and storyteller living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Paula has told stories at the Minnesota Fringe Festival and the Moth Grand Slam at the Fitzgerald Theater, and has read her poetry at Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts and the Loft Literary Center. She has a doctorate in Victorian religious literature from the University of Minnesota but has always managed to find work anyway.