How It Came to Be that the Rook Took the Queen
for my father
You know, I never did see a coyote in town.
Though I kept suggesting so, spinning tales
of link-gold eyes, a lowdown slink to distract
from the fact that I could not track how the rook’s
straight path could end in a hook or how to calculate
the area East of a hypotenuse. No.
And I still do not know how to add by abacus
though I brought you one on more than one occasion.
But since I am no longer a young woman, it seems a good time
to come clean: I did see a horse in a green velvet jacket
& an executioner’s eyeshade. A clamour of rooks
on the grounds of the Tower of London. And, in New York City,
they’ve got an aircraft carrier for show. But, why didn’t I tell you
about that? About the blanched branches of the curly willow
and the sky dimmed half-dark and pink? And, why
didn’t I tell you about when the cherry tree out front split
in two? That tree was fruit-barren but showy so it was as pink
as it would ever be. The March rains kept on and it fell—
bustle up—like a fancy woman in a parade. Why, then,
didn’t I tell you that? In the midst of all that saying
and not, still you shimmied up the ladder, father,
oh father, knuckles creaking and pointing north, knees clanking
against the garage, you shoveled the gutters. Even then, did you know
of the one hundred bulls Pythagoras ordered slaughtered
in honor of the theorem while I was down there holding the ladder
and holding forth about the dreamed-up coyote bedding down
in the peonies and slipping the Thanksgiving carcass
off the porch? Did you know that he—Pythagoras,
not the coyote—was reputed to have a golden thigh?
I know you know it’s bad luck to hang a calendar
before January the first, to light three cigarettes
on one match, to plant seeds in the last four days
of March. And you’ll recall, father, that Judas Iscariot
was the thirteenth banquet guest. For that, Herbert Hoover
wouldn’t tolerate dinner for one more than twelve. No,
they hired a stand-in. Father, you goodly mathematician,
do you believe me when I tell you I never knew til now
that squared as in three squared is nine as in four squared
is sixteen as in a-squared plus b-squared meant a thing?
No.
But, slowly now, the rooks and you are gone silent in this frayed
afternoon light & I can see the roof’s pitched peaks casting off shadows.
Squares. Ah, squared. As in nailed together four-sided, solid-square.
And suddenly Pythagoras & his smoky bulls & his prohibition
against the eating of meat & even beans & the shimmer off the roof
& the use of the abacus to teach math to the blind, it all comes together.
And I can see the chess-rook make a hooked move toward the queen
and a ladder leaning south is most certainly a sign of love.
