 First poem I'm going to read is takes its title from a chapter title from a fifth grade math book certain impossible likely Two trains approach Chicago at 50 miles an hour Susan has five apples, but James has only two How much would you weigh on Jupiter on earth? Each pie is divided into six equal parts The first train leaves San Francisco at 6 a.m. Remember an object can't have negative weight The New York train will make three stops of an hour each if Susan weighs 3,000 pounds on mercury will they let her on the train? Did you remember to account for settling during transport? James busy converting Celsius to Fahrenheit has missed his train entirely The taxi charges to 25 for every half mile or a minute in traffic and the conductor is drunk and we're moving way too fast Estimate the likelihood that James and Susan will meet hint. You can slice each pie only once This next one's called Persephone at 13 She can swim in and through tail flicking down into the earth of her own flesh Becoming in her descent a cell an electron small things spinning in a great void We're so far from solid more dark than anything Fourth period the little fish dime a dozen under the microscope pump ruby spheres through cellophane tails Down here under the lens. It's all tunnels jostlings in the hall The long slow ticking towards summer Mothers in their cloaks preparing to mourn Dime a dozen those depths those five red jewels all the girls are doing it Dark matter richer than loam. It's loping song pull of a way of in The sweet seed shall eat on the way down. I seem to have marked the wrong thing just a minute here Should be at the end of number two There we go Super baby jumbo prawn One up one down my favorite option of the neighborhood Takaria and up and down again a clunk and a whisper more perfect perhaps if it was shrimp Sorry pure ring of oxymoron But I like it the way it is with black beans and green salsa giant minus one tortilla fresh from the steam. I Like the almost the sideways series built and then broken 11 or 7 the abandoned factory with its grid of modeled glass in one corner the inevitable birds nest or bullet hole or The temptations of hopscotch step on a crack break your mother's back. I know I know How expected how don't we always want it rough? Some days it's enough sitting in the car eating lunch watching surfers temp the waves Sun through the windshield ice melting in the Agua fresca and Afterwards rolling bits of tin foil into tiny silver hearts Lightweight charms strung out a strung out along the dash Balance of beans and rice sting of salsa where I built my big sting of salsa where I bit my lip Helpless compelled. I chew it till it bleeds This last one is called etymology of lost. I'm going to move this because it's making a little crazy. There we go Maybe I won't etymology of lost and I'm up there on the mountaintop my sister says and she's telling me about her father Car abandoned body never found the friend and her mother hung out together on a long line of not knowing Light in an alleyway his wallet still on the dash and Now here I'm supposed to detail something even worse a whole family down the street gone laid out a newsprint and bulletin body in the water pins on a map looking and looking away or Another one's twins lost at 22 weeks. I say it too. I'm not immune or strong or maybe cruel enough Like a set of house keys. Have you lost someone? past participle of loose Middle English Lawson from Old English Lossian to perish My infant son plays a game with his pink rubber ball. He hides it and when he lifts to the pillow lifts the pillow There it is Lord save us from the etymologist or is it the talk show host? Show don't tell we say but that can't have been what we were talking about For example, one of them had a broken back For example, I'm so sorry for your loss The ball is still there. He can do this for hours We stood on the street corner clutching our children noses buried in their pliable scalps It is so unfair to end this they found him or they never found him and Then we went out for Kung Pao tofu and home to bed And I kissed my son on the head and sang to him first the song about the angels and then the one about the sky