Maureen Seaton

The Freezing Point of the Universe

I used to speak in anagrams during sex no wonder
you often left me for girls uninterested in the twist

between "Fawlty Towers" and flowery twats. Scold me.
       Whenever I think in four-dimensional hypercubic

       numerals (1, 16, 81, 256, and so on) you have the right
to demand a simple lunch (pot roast, corn) and tip

me on my head for equilibrium. You're off again I know it,
       eyes glazed with dull numbers (although the set

       of dull numbers is a null set, go figure). Randomness
steeps in the eye of the beholder; willfulness percolates.

Asked to choose a random number between 10 and 20
       you confidently choose 17 like everyone else, a maximally

       unremarkable number and here is the catch:
You wish I were one of the Nine Virtuous Women don't you,

the middle pretty sister of the Seven Sisters of Sorrow
       and who can blame you. All this talk of radios and "10-codes."

       In Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, a 10-45 means "automobile
collision." Elsewhere in the same commonwealth

it stands for "carcass of an unlucky beast." In Maine,
       "domestic disturbance." 10-4, Good Buddy. The difference

       between the number of pebbles in Newton's calculus
and this four-room house which exhausts the potential

for expansion in the dimensions of width and depth
       seems a churlish substitute for the flinty accolades you've been

       dealing me lately. And why shouldn't you. Absolute Zero
is where it all begins, the clean slate. Walk out now, you're freezing.

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