“Note for a Textbook

The question is never answered, never resolved,
The circle of love and anger never squared,
The stubborn instinct not translated yet
In decimals, accurate and predictable
In union dues or payroll cuts or blood...

Always a symbol lost in the lovely theorem,
A fraction that will not fit in the sum of the system,
A jutting thrust in the graph of the commissar's forecast,
A troublesome blank in gauleiter's careful accounting,
An awkward hitch in the plans of the second vice-president.

The answers worked on the slate are never the same,
And the answers proved in the back of the book are wrong.”