My nine-year-old asks about the dark sides,
sides not easily seen, and if they cannot be seen
do they exit. I feel I am about to enter a black hole.
Before answering I imagine asking this didn’t
of my own father, if he saw other sides
of his son. If he bothered to look.
With internet help my son learns a myriagon
has 10,000 sides, a megagon has one billion,
and how an apeirogon is a polygon with an infinite
number of sides. Imagine that, he says.
And I do, confirming the geometry of my youth
and numbered days as an incomplete theorem,
wholly incongruent. Then he asks what form has
the most complex or interesting sides. I know this
as if were etched into my skin: The human form.
But I say – I don’t know. It is his problem to solve
now, to look with intent for complexities in things
appearing deceivingly simple and one dimensional.
