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Poetry

Zero

Jonathan Fletcher
issue three

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Whenever the divine idea of 3 in 1 

just doesn’t do it for me, 

or when the numbers don’t look good, 

I think of the curious integer 

the Maya independently developed,

the one the early Christians 

opposed, and the unpleasant infinity 

promised to those who 

don’t believe in the one

and only higher power, 

and how there was no symbol for zero 

in the Gregorian calendar, 

or the Roman numeral system,

and maybe the dreaded digit 

does indeed represent nothingness

because anything times 

it equals zero, and anything 

added to it retains 

the same numerical value,

but I think of the times 

I tried and failed to subtract 

myself, the calculus

that went into such equations, 

and all I now see 

when I look at that troublesome whole 

number is numerical potential, 

plus the value 

I still retain, and what is that, 

if not a positive?