Conor Gearin
Radius
Start with a straight line. Sweep
like a clock-hand to make a circle.
Here’s how far the lead got
from the factory smokestacks.
Here’s the last house the blast
erased. Take out a longer line
and draw radiation’s wider ring.
In our square driveway, I pedaled
my bike in an endless circle
as if roped to the middle
like a circus horse. Now I take
sharp corners around town, head down
but still tied to the invisible
turning radius, as sure as the moon
tracks an orbit. We might perambulate
around the problem but its center
remains, a wetland undone
by loosestrife and phragmites.
Zero: the number that begins
where it ends, anti-narrative,
observing only. When engineers
proposed to slingshot the rocket
out of orbit from Earth to the moon,
they solved a route out of zero’s logic.
When I rode down the driveway
I could have never returned.
Instead I collapse the radius
like a telescope. I return
to the point of origin. Again I
throw all my weight against it.
