Geometry

by

Viola Lee

At the kitchen table my daughter asks what my favorite shape is, and I say circles, I love
circles, how they go round and never decide where to begin. My son says a nonagon,
very seriously. My husband says hexagon. My daughter says hers is the decagon. I think,
suddenly, thank you—to the house for this strange abundance. Most days are like this,
rooms filled with the gentle clutter of useless information, shapes and names and facts
that won’t save us. We live surrounded by knowledge that does nothing but pass
through us, loosening the hardened edges of who we think we are, until our bodies are
unmade. To be unmade is to be unfinished, and to be unfinished is a kind of mercy,
maybe more like grace. The body begins again every morning, every minute, and
because of this we are given this simple, impossible task of loving every hour, every angle
that we pass.

Viola Lee received her MFA in poetry from New York University. Her poetry collection Lightening after the Echo was published by Another New Calligraphy. Her poems have appeared in literary journals across the United States, including Bellevue Literary Review, Mississippi Review, Barrow Street, Another Chicago Magazine, and Pleiades, among others. She lives in Chicago with her husband, son, and daughter. Viola teaches fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students at Near North Montessori School.