Two Poems by Carol Dorf
Hand in Hand
With both hands, say concentration,
as in beating egg whites, or mending a rip,
or assembling a new sofa that you hope
will lead to family togetherness, all heaped
there reading your books, or be real,
watching the same show. Pleasure
focuses on the instant and doesn't worry
about what has come before. Pleasure
does not read the paper or anyone's tweets.
With both hands, hold someone, which could include
the cat, explain dark matter in a gesture.
If Not Now?
Do you want to see me
in that alternate version
of our lives?
I would like
you to know I'm an expert
in determining one fabric
in relation to another.
Don't be sorry to call—
I accept
communications
and feel little compunction
to refrain from hanging up.
No one would know
looking at me now
but I could pogo
for most of a party
and then shout slogans
at the demo the next morning.
You sing
about bombs, disruption.
Let me ask you,
What comes next?
Art Information
Carol Dorf is poetry editor of Talking Writing. Her chapbook Theory Headed Dragon is available through Finishing Line Press. Her poetry has been published in Glint, Slipstream, Spillway, Sin Fronteras, Antiphon, About Place, Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, Scientific American, Best of Indie Lit New England, and elsewhere. She teaches mathematics in Berkeley, California.
