∧
font size
∨

Simple Math 

Emily Schulten

Our friend Neal has black patches on his memory—
words, faces he can’t recall since a semi hit his bike

and his brain had trouble being in his head, grew
against his skull as he lay like highway chrome.

Now he remembers numbers with uncanny precision—
like the first responder, Engine No. 472, that saved him,

or the phone number of the girl from last night
whom he won’t call, because he can’t remember her name.

I wish my brain could swell this way, that I could remember
you only as an equation, numbers adding up to a sum,

a formula ending in an answer rather than knots inside, how
your face looked when it contorted into the truth, the empty

apartment when you’d gone. If only when you broke me,
it had knocked me senseless, left patches over everything

that doesn’t add up, over the part of my brain that can’t forget,
can’t make a theorem of my slow-beating heart as we crashed.