Palms touching, hinged at the wrists;
fingers held flat, then sprung wide — my son
makes a puppet of the Pythagorean Theorem.
Mouth agape, it surfaces from rivers past.
The hypotenuse is a fierce long-sided beast.
I groan laughter.

All afternoon we sit at right angles to a table crosscut
by October sun, trying to resurrect the ancient Greek.
At first, we conjure only ghostly figures, a trio
of vertices, the relationship of their shadowy legs traced
back to the ruins of what tribute we paid him in school.

Learning together, we exhume his elegant formula
and will its uses to life. How tender this geometry
of homework, the lines drawn between us with words
both kind and stern, here in the fading light
of the world’s turning, these hours soon gone.

From The Grace of Light (Finishing Line Press, 2004)
First published in Poet Lore (Spring/Summer, 2003)
Used here with the author’s permission.