Little friend Beth her
    shiny
            brown         Shirley Temple curls in which the mathematician
                            in me always desperately wanted to place small pickles

                                                                                                                                              geometrically

                                                                                                                                              perfectly

the spirals perfect to keep track of

Later talking myself                                 out of
    OCD
as I skipped down the sidewalk noticing every crevice crack and
    extra
    impact
    my
    foot
                    did and didn’t make

never telling anyone

not everyone can think their way out of that

I don’t want to skew understanding

water down the struggle

my neurons were so plastic

my brain so logic-bound

pragmatic

I can’t keep worrying about sidewalks or bounces or light switches. It will take up too much of my time

the mathematician calculated

        got off easy
                        just think my way out

sticky brownness of tobacco drying in the wind of the heater on cold green Volare seats
            rankled skin protesting poison vinyl before I knew to know

me dreaming of the applesauce at the Danville school

this weak body ecstatic at the sweet brown adrenaline in the air from these barns

a      l  o  n  g  e  r        d  r  i  ve   
than usual

but more tobacco to drive past

and Beth