Two Poems

Fractions → Whole Numbers

I walk into my shadow. My shadows.
One under another. What am I?

A fraction: numerator 
and denominator

A light spot the shape of a leaf 
on the skin of a red pear

Words redolent of jasmine blossoms
crown this scentless winter cold

Sky: the limited way we see the universe
and lake borrowing, deepening, its color

Dream: row houses 
fronting community garden

First person singular
First person plural

Rebel 

against the rectangular 
It’s unnatural
Pink the flower’s petal  red its center
 soft the drape of its unfolding side
  scalloped its edge  upward
   its center rising  a turret
    Imagine 
   words unsentenced
  Tip expands  radiates out-
 ward   Chrysanthemum
fireworks
 So you, Gaudí, soften 
  the square, of course, &
   skirt the perpendicular  S 
    curve seating around the cir-
   cumference imagining people 
  uncomfortable in the angularity
 of chairs  Roll a building as if a
bowl   tilt columns   break plates
take small shapes to make mosaic
 dragon  Splash color  uplift turrets
  top them arabesque   fail & succeed
    You round a house  no corners  See 
      how the flower grows     See un-
      square sentences  Energy  mass 
    times the speed of light in a 
   vacuum   See a graduated 
  rising   layers of circles 
You cannot, will not, 
  be cornered.

Poet and essayist Margaret Rozga is the author of four books including “Pestiferous Questions: A Life in Poems” (Lit Fest Press 2017), written with the help of a creative writer’s fellowship at the American Antiquarian Society. She edited the poetry anthology :Through This Door: Wisconsin In Poems,” one of the projects of her term as the 2019-2020 Wisconsin Poet Laureate. Her work is forthcoming or has appeared recently in The Progressive, South Florida Poetry Journal, and Wisconsin Magazine of History.  Follow her on Twitter @RozgaMargaret.

Artwork by Fatema Al Fardan