The Bedside Book of Division

As a girl, she mentally pictured odd

numbers as misfits,

even numbers

as the sort of bullies

that no one ever called out

because of the way

they blended in.

They could split

each other in two

and leave no evidence.

No jagged horizon.

No one to tell the tale.

I could, conceivably, describe the landscape

or paraphrase

our conversation

about Egyptian gods

and goddesses.

She still pictures their golden bodies

on the river’s steeper shore

in divine threes

or fives, indifferent

to our own awkward pairing.