The Mathematician

He went seeking primes so monstrously large
even the cosmos blanched at their breadth.

He scribbled formulas,
stuffed them with numbers
to the point of gagging,
then fed them all the more.

His masterpiece — ten thousand digits of pride —
was pricked with one unforeseen pin —
it was divisible by 10007.

Not thirteen, his usual foe,
but this fifth columnist,
hiding out in the land of five digits.

He folded up his brain
like old clothes,
tossed it in the nearest donation box.

In the city, there’s a homeless man
who will prove 1=0
for spare change.

Weightless.
Yes. I’ve been that,
floating around in a cabin
like a dust mote,
waving my arms, kicking my legs,
anything to introduce myself
into such an absurd situation.

I’m sorry but I can’t really
explain it to you,
other than,
without gravity’s anchor,
the body’s about as useless
as your brother.

I drift up.
I touch the ceiling.
I maneuver myself
but, like an oar
in a maelstrom,
my intentions rarely
match the results.

Yes, it’s strange.
My heart, every now and then,
has abruptly ascended,
(like the time when I first met you
if you remember)
but, on those occasions,
the rest of me
didn’t come along for the ride.

As for my head…
nothing’s changed there.
After a while, it tells me,
“You can do this.”
Of course,
that’s after I’m already doing it.

And the rock we dug out of
the side of the hill
proved to be so radioactive
that two geologists exposed to it
went up in flames like touch-paper.

Only three of the men
returned from the mission to the dark side.
Some kind of green-scaled three-headed creature,
about twenty fields tall,
attacked the team,
tore many of them to shreds.

We lost Dr Ehlerimen to a bog,
and Professor Casey to a sudden landslide.
And our chef, when out scouring
the local plant life for prospective garnishes,
was sucked up and swallowed
by what is known in the lab 
as a crocodile flower.

Yes, I got your letter.
Crime’s on the rise.
There are violent protests in the street.
Countries in the Middle East
are talking war.
I agree, Earth is a dangerous place.
But just you try living elsewhere.

This outpost
is a sorry place,
but I’m a scientist
who must take pleasure
in the most arid soil,
the barest rock,
of a planet
that surely deserves
to be unknown.

Far from the breath
of a loved one,
this world kills
in a way
so no harm
seems to be done.
I’m roused
from dreams of home,
to reconvene with what
I’m being paid to do:
the travel,
the digging,
the assaying,
the reporting.

It’s a vast galaxy.
It’s beautiful
where I choose it to be,
ugly everywhere else.