The October 3rd prompt in The Daily Poet: Day-By-Day Prompts For Your Writing Practice, by Kelli Russell Agodon & Martha Silano, is to ‘write a poem that combines two completely different things’. As coincidence would have it, I was just sent a book with a title that (to my mind) does just that…

What does the heart know about math?
Seldom does anything about love add up
if the truth be told

To the lonely heart
everything is multiplied—
but the result is still zero

To hearts in love
one plus one
equals infinity

The broken heart
divides into
millions of pieces

What does math have to do with love?
Seldom does anything about love add up
if the truth be told

Though to many
math is a mystery
an incomprehensible mess

with love
it’s hard to correct a mistake
you can’t always show your work

and the answers are not always clear

(3 October 2014)