Laurie Clemens

THE DOCTOR SAID A DOMESTIC HOBBY IS THERAPEUTIC

  Mom made cookies.



The rolling pin rhythm--

		mmm   hmm   mmm,   

	a hitch

			at the end of its reach

		an echo of her hum.



Dozens of hearts cut--

		rested

			on a butter-slicked pan

sugar-glittered.

			

Something was off with the taste.



The dog got fat and the birds

		and the potted plants.

		           Then the baking stopped.



She disappeared--

		we found her in a closet

				cross-legged, 

	rocking

					

a laundry basket stuffed with towels.



Mom said (just before

		we closed the door), you can't

			add vanilla

				once the baking's done.

* * *

N TO THE ZERO POWER

He holds one photograph
featuring one man and one woman.

Three birds perch on two wires
forming an isosceles triangle over the last
red brick street in town.

If a man loves a woman a prime number of years
before she loves another, what are the unknowns?

The base. The apex. Where the road ends
in a cornfield—a cradle—a crying shame—
a blackboard waits for the right equation

and if that number squares
will that lead him to the root

of his trouble? Which is? He wakes
one morning, old

and discovers he married wrong. He begins with N
and works back, looking for a number
that divides, leaves no remainder, ends
in nothing but the dust of two clapped erasers.

Laurie Clemens is a psychologist who lives and works in Stillwater, Oklahoma with her husband and two herding dogs. She enjoys bird photography and gardening with plants native to her region. This is her second appearance in Wordgathering. Her poetry has also appeared in Soundzine.