Lately this obscure debate

You took your turn on the road of exile
Remembering your mother as you wanted her to be
Noting how the thin blue flow of the river
Reminded you again and again – dry season

Remembering your mother as you wanted her to be
Ready to pause for conversation’s meanders
Instead you are reminded again and again – dry season
And all around the two of you elegiac monuments rise

Ready to pause for conversation’s meanders
You can’t help mentioning the glacial melt
All around you rocky elegiac monuments rise
Not as slowly as predicted at the millennium

You can’t help mentioning the glacial melt
Though everyone knows that stops conversation
As though you predicted a millennium
Of lost species – start with the small – summer gnats

Though everyone knows that stops conversation
Noting how the thin blue flow of the river
Leads to lost species – start with the small – water striders
You take your turn on the road of exile

Functional

Fanatic is the word of the day.
The domain of the function is the set of inputs.
How did the programmer know in advance?
The range is the set of outputs.

The domain of the function is the set of inputs.
Where are you going little one?
The range is the set of outputs.
Some outcomes all too predictable.

Where are you going little one.
Always be prepared: keys, flashlight, acceptable ID.
Some outcomes all too predictable.
Who isn’t afraid of leaving on a jet plane?

Always be prepared: keys, flashlight, acceptable ID.
You thought you had calculated direction of change.
Who isn’t afraid of leaving on a jet plane?
It used to be a simple line, a predictable curve.

You thought you had calculated the direction of change.
How did the programmer know in advance?
It used to be a simple line, a predictable curve.
Fanatic is the word of the day.

***

Carol Dorf has three chapbooks in print, Given, (Origami Poems,) Some Years Ask, (Moria Press) and Theory Headed Dragon, (Finishing Line Press). Her poetry also appears in Unlikely Stories, Shofar, About Place, Great Weather For Media,  Slipstream, The Mom Egg, Sin Fronteras, Heresies, Feminist Studies, Scientific American, and Maintenant. She is poetry editor of Talking Writing. She is interested in the intersections between poetry, disability, and science.