I wanted to be
a different shape today.
But circle felt too cyclical,
and square too conformist —
like my Baptist mama
who always starts where
the last word ends,
moving corner to corner
without considering the diagonal.
Maybe I could be triangle,
but then I’d peak, fall back down.
I’m almost thirty — there isn’t time
to walk at an incline
like I did at nineteen, at twenty-four,
back when I thought
life was steady-state cardio
instead of an anthill,
squished under other people’s feet.
I guess I could be rectangle —
a perfectly predictable shape
for a suburban Subaru stroller-pusher.
But I fancy myself
high-minded hexagon,
an oracular octagon —
something with a lot of edge,
hard to draw in one quick swoop.
A shape that takes time to get right,
and you smile
when you put down
your pen.
This is clever and unexpected. Where did this idea come from, and what shape am I?
There is nothing quite as satisfying as how hexagons can tile snugly together to fill a space. They are hard to capture, but their mathematical beauty is rich.
They are worth the effort.