At parties they ask, what are the practical
applications of your work? He shrugs and lifts
his drink. And I can’t help, except to tactically
change the conversational ground; we shift
to books, my field (flunked calculus in school,
twenty-three years ago). He does topology,
studies space and shape and line, the rules
that govern how we touch. Geography
is just as cruel. Twenty hours from her land
to ours – we did the math in school. Three years back
and forth, a strain – until we let her hand
slow slip away. We’re just friends now. Why rack
our brains to find a way for her to stay?
To teleport would be the only way.
*****
for Karina, with all our love