Alex Stolis
The Hum of Geometry; the Music of Spheres
6. In a quadrilateral two angles are equal. The third angle is equal to the sum
of the two equal angles. The fourth angle is 60° less than twice the sum of
the other three angles. Find the measures of the angles in the quadrilateral.
You’re invisible again. The girl in messy braids.
There’s a siren. There’s always a siren.
This time an ambulance. The kitchen window
overlooks a park. Two swings, monkey bars,
broken teeter-totter and a pool of water from
last night’s rain. You smell apples, paste, newly
sharpened pencils. You make coffee, let the dog
out, watch him sniff out a rabbit from the garden.
You smell warm pressed cotton, shoe polish,
tobacco; smells that mean I’m already gone.
The values of the angles are 35°, 35°, 70° and 220°
She’s flirting with me.
I feel the candied-apple wing
of a dragonfly buzz the air.
It’s an improvisation, like when you pretend
to know how it ends and it comes
out all wrong.
The wind is a bend in the river,
an end note; a love song;
she wants to tell me a secret.
I’ll roll with it, remain still,
better to be smoke;
become a furtive memory.
Other work by Alex Stolis