The Heart as a Geometric Shape

by Rebecca Schumejda

Since what pushes us out into the world
can’t pull us back in, I’m envious
of how our daughter is drawn to you.

Einstein said, “gravity is the result of
the curvature of space-time geometry.”

He also said, “gravity can not be responsible
for people falling in love.”

For months post surgery, when I couldn’t lift her,
you placed her in my arms after she fell asleep,
so I could marvel over the world we created
spinning under her twitching eyelids.

Nonetheless, we do not own our inventions
unless something goes wrong.
Ask the parents of mass murders
how their names at the bottom
of birth certificates sealed their guilt,
like Einstein’s signature on the letter to Roosevelt
recommending atom bombs be made.

If only our daughter’s emotions
could be expressed
in a mathematical expression,
simple like drawing the heart (lobes pointing up)
cutting the geometric shape in half
and calculating the value.


*Rebecca Schumejda is the author of Falling Forward, a full-length collections of poems (sunnyoutside, 2009); The Map of Our Garden (verve bath, 2009); Dream Big Work Harder (sunnyoutside press 2006); The Tear Duct of the Storm (Green Bean Press, 2001); and the poem "Logic" on a postcard (sunnyoutside).

*www.rebeccaschumejda.com