Sand Reckoner

Patty Seyburn

                          Defendit numerus

 

Though we cannot be sure how Archimedes died, it’s rarely debated:
a Roman soldier cast a shadow on the old man’s sand diagram and
when he asked the soldier to move, the latter ran him through with a sword.

Or the soldier ordered him to go to see Marcellus.

Wait a minute, said the old man, I’m working a problem.

Then, run through.

Patty Seyburn

Patty Seyburn has published four books of poems: Perfecta (What Books Press, 2014), Hilarity (New Issues Press, 2009), Mechanical Cluster (Ohio State University Press, 2002), and Diasporadic (Helicon Nine Editions, 1998). She is a professor at California State University, Long Beach, and coeditor of POOL: A Journal of Poetry (www.poolpoetry.com).


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