Want

Want
Joan Larkin

She wants a house full of cups and the ghosts
of last century’s lesbians;I want a spotless
apartment, a fast computer.She wants a woodstove,
three cords of ash, an axe;I want
a clean gas flame.She wants a row of jars:
oats, coriander, thick green oil;
I want nothing to store.She wants pomianders,
linens, baby quilts, scrapbooks.She wants Wellesley
reunions.I want gleaming floorboards, the river’s
reflection. She wants shrimp and sweat and salt;
she wants chocolate.I want a raku bowl,
steam rising from rice.She wants goats,
chickens, children.Feeding and weeping.I want
wind from the river freshening cleared rooms.
She wants birthdays, theaters, flags, peonies.
I want words like lasers.She wants a mother’s
tenderness.Touch ancient as the river.
I want a woman’s wit swift as a fox.
She’s in her city, meeting
her deadline; I’m in my mill village out late
with the dog, listening to the pinging wind bells thinking
of the twelve years of wanting, apart and together.
We’ve kissed all weekend; we want
to drive the hundred miles and try it again.

The Mathematician in Love

The Mathematician in Love
William John Macquorn Rankine

I.

A mathematician fell madly in love
With a lady, young, handsome, and charming:
By angles and ratios harmonic he strove
Her curves and proportions all faultless to prove.
As he scrawled hieroglyphics alarming.

II.

He measured with care, from the ends of a base,
The arcs which her features subtended:
Then he framed transcendental equations, to trace
The flowing outlines of her figure and face,
And thought the result very splendid.

III.

He studied (since music has charms for the fair)
The theory of fiddles and whistles, –
Then composed, by acoustic equations, an air,
Which, when ’twas performed, made the lady’s long hair
Stand on end, like a porcupine’s bristles.

IV.

The lady loved dancing: — he therefore applied,
To the polka and waltz, an equation;
But when to rotate on his axis he tried,
His centre of gravity swayed to one side,
And he fell, by the earth’s gravitation.

V.

No doubts of the fate of his suit made him pause,
For he proved, to his own satisfaction,
That the fair one returned his affection; — “because,
“As everyone knows, by mechanical laws,
“Re-action is equal to action.”

VI.

“Let x denote beauty, — y, manners well-bred, –
“z, Fortune, — (this last is essential), –
“Let L stand for love” — our philosopher said, –
“Then L is a function of x, y, and z,
“Of the kind which is known as potential.”

VII.

“Now integrate L with respect to d t,
“(t Standing for time and persuasion);
“Then, between proper limits, ’tis easy to see,
“The definite integral Marriage must be: –
“(A very concise demonstration).”

VIII.

Said he — “If the wandering course of the moon
“By Algebra can be predicted,
“The female affections must yield to it soon” –
– But the lady ran off with a dashing dragoon,
And left him amazed and afflicted.