I know some young scholars who

Insist upon insisting that they

Are totally unable to compute or comprehend

One half of one hundred is…

One third of a hundred is…

Two thirds of two pop tarts is…divided equally

Their feigned ignorance is almost as impressive as it would be if

They did the math—

We live in a world where mothers and fathers die

Prematurely, with tangled, unanswerable questions about the hows and the whys

So take that, Universe! We don’t have to be your mathematicians!

Never really knowing

All we lose by refusing to

Face the lizards of math

Before we can

Face dragons.