Divide the number of empty storefronts in my hometown
by the texture of the music shop where I bought my first drumsticks
that seemed like it had been there forever
and now will soon become a pet washing establishment
then
Divide the uninhabited islands that have been operating
at a trade deficit for centuries if not millennia apparently
by the number of penguins who might given enough time
and a typewriter devise a more coherent economic strategery
than the current administration
then
Divide the times my child has run down the hallway
of my childhood home into the arms of her grandmother
by the memories of myself at that age in the same house
running constantly through my head at any given moment
until the child and the parent and memory are one
bears repeating
Joshua Keiter 