KYLE HEMMINGS
The Rule of Nines
if you go strictly by the rule of nines
then you should be the girl
who has at least one working snorkel
and eight zippered-down lives to love me.
i’m familiar with the contour and wash-out
of scuba divers with an acute nitrogen bent.
but ismael knitting his socks at the window
says you're not the girl for me,
substituting Afghans for old wives tales
or snow for the distance
between girls
who have never seen New England.
and in a manner of speaking
he thinks this will stitch a broken salty dog,
the pattern of needles he leaves on the floor,
the shape of tragic fish who could never
count in sequence.
