The Impossibility Theorem

by John MacBeath Watkins

I’m sitting on the edge of my world

waiting for Columbus to come
waiting for the seeker of some secret shore
to cast me a line and draw me close once more.

We were parallel lines

born never to meet
until we ran into each other
on this Mobeus street.

Now I with all my mind

cannot divine the final Pi
but the laws the numbers live by
have long divided you and I.

That world of liquid crystals

has seen unreason in our sins
and with a clashing of its symbols
sought to bring its logic in.

‘I divorced old barren reason’

wise old Khayyam said
and she showed up on our doorstep
where her lonely logic led.

At Pythagoras’ insistence
she restored our perfect distance
so I’m sitting on the edge of my world
waiting for Columbus to come
listening to the death of my words
toppling off the tip of my tongue.