Today’s poem actually synthesizes the first seven poems in the “How to Know if Your .89 is Real.” I gave myself a challenge this morning to compose a synthesis poem from the seven others in under thirty minutes. I finished in twenty. This is not meant to impress you. Does this impress you?
#8: The Essay Portion
“You have thirty minutes to synthesize your ideas into a coherent response that serves to answer the question: “How to know if your .89 is real. Begin. . .”
Exordium:
There is only one of five answers
from which any one of us
can select at any time.
And one of them is E.
Sometimes. . .it has to be E.
If there really is
“all of the above.”
Narratio:
I am not one of the all.
They’ve always called me “Al.”
One letter short
of being complete.
It limits what I can–
or what I should be expected–
to give.
I miss, more than many,
the loss of .11. It hits me hard
a stinging swarm of B’s.
.11 are my two arms raised in surrender.
I will never fit
into one of these circles
even when I stand in the center
sweeping my arms in wide arcs
in an attempt to fill the space.
Confirmatio:
I see my .11 later
on the evening news.
It is early fall.
A reporter says we are failing.
He is missing an L.
Right after the F.
All of us miss this.
Refutio:
The math is simple:
.89 of “all.”
Show your work.
Remember your units.
He’s another Al
on a television screen
pointing to fronts
and systems
and pressure.
We are analog orphans
tuned in and turned away.
We point our #2 pencils
at a score sheet thinking
the channel will change.
Show your work.
The units for this problem are stones.
Stones to be hurled.
Stones to be collected.
Stones to sew into our hemlines.
It’s all about measurement, Al.
Peroratio:
If you wade into the water
you must be more than
not
less than the depth of the water.
They do not round up here.
We strive for 89%.
If only to prove
that we can
B.
#9: Synthesis
This page left intentionally blank.
Paul W. Hankins (March 2015)