Red Math

Associate Editor Kate Jayroe: Widerman’s searingly passionate exploration of colorful memory from a past season will undoubtedly smolder in the reader’s mind long after encountering the poem itself. There’s a careful and idiosyncratic care given to the harmony (and disharmony) of opposites in this tension-filled verse.

Listen to Widerman read her miCRo:

Red Math

Now my version of red is always 
two parts: half me, half you. That fleshy 
incarnadine feeling. I assumed incorrectly 
that equations were cool stones 
set in predetermined order. 
For you math was a messy art 
with its own gestures. I loved watching you 
devote yourself to one proof 
while I did the same with a single 
metaphor. We apprenticed together 
until morning touched our slouched 
shoulders. Continued even when ants 
punctuated the table in summer. 
You were an accumulative force, white pages 
with penciled text stacking around your face. 
For many years I had put that face 
under a silver lock. Now I have only a few pictures. 
In one you’re sprawled on a living room couch 
smiling, lit by green lights, a gallon of water 
in your hand. In another, you are my cameraman. 
Your gaze thrashes my portrait. 
I sit in front of the fireplace where we committed 
many acts. Acre after acre of my body over yours. 
No reins or bridle or warning. 
The guitar with the broken strings. 
Horizontal snow. 
I am not trying to give you a riddle. 
I hope your world is as you wish. 
I am standing on my own two legs 
in this afternoon’s redness. 
I feel the pressure of your mind 
outside the frame.