poetry

Math Poem
Aaron Kreuter

Let soldiers stand for violence. Let the suburbs stand for childhood. Let paella stand for love. Let zero stand for death.

So: the soldiers invaded the suburbs looking for precious metals, gold like paella. They found nothing.

Again. The suburban housewife fed the interred soldiers black ink paella, therefore they laughed and came onto her in their own language, ate until the plates were empty, their mouths satisfied holes.

Make the variables dance: by the third day the paella was up to the rooftops. The government helicoptered in the navy, but by then it was too late: the inhabitants were dead, as far as the eye (that glass wheel) could see, an ocean of saffron-infused rice.

Now for the proof.

Aaron Kreuter is a writer of fiction and poetry currently doing graduate work at the University of Victoria. His work has appeared in Existere, FreeFall, the Toronto Quarterly, and Soliloquies, and he is the author of a poetry chapbook entitled Waiting by the Sea and Other Poems.