Poem
Jane Hirshfield
Like Two Negative Numbers Multiplied by Rain
Like Two Negative Numbers Multiplied by Rain
Like Two Negative Numbers Multiplied by Rain
Lie down, you are horizontal.Stand up, you are not.
I wanted my fate to be human.
Like a perfume
that does not choose the direction it travels,
that cannot be straight or crooked, kept out or kept.
Yes, No, Or
–a day, a life, slips through them,
taking off the third skin,
taking off the fourth.
And the logic of shoes becomes at last simple,
an animal question, scuffing.
Old shoes, old roads–
the questions keep being new ones.
Like two negative numbers multiplied by rain
into oranges and olives.
© 2012, Jane Hirshfield
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Poems of Jane Hirshfield
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Like Two Negative Numbers Multiplied by Rain
Lie down, you are horizontal.Stand up, you are not.
I wanted my fate to be human.
Like a perfume
that does not choose the direction it travels,
that cannot be straight or crooked, kept out or kept.
Yes, No, Or
–a day, a life, slips through them,
taking off the third skin,
taking off the fourth.
And the logic of shoes becomes at last simple,
an animal question, scuffing.
Old shoes, old roads–
the questions keep being new ones.
Like two negative numbers multiplied by rain
into oranges and olives.
Like Two Negative Numbers Multiplied by Rain
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