Ben Nardolilli currently lives in New York City. His work has appeared in Perigee Magazine, Red Fez, Danse Macabre, The 22 Magazine, Quail Bell Magazine, Elimae, The Northampton Review, Local Train Magazine, The Minetta Review, and Yes Poetry. He blogs at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com and is trying to publish his novels.
Crossed Patterns
Originally published in Alternate Route, Spring 2022
The mathematics of simple things
Are combining together, figuring out
Better kinds of equations
My furniture conspires with my shoes,
My clothes hang in peace
With the unread books on my shelf
Nothing has changed on the surface
Because everything cancels out,
But a subtraction waits on the horizon
The path of clouds beyond the window
And the width of that window,
They are exchanging numbers now