By the Numbers

From Nowhere, from outside the known
Sticky with their own purpose, they come
Science made fiction, elided, a finger smeared
Across the straight graphite line
Into the print of a human animal scuffing
Its tracks across the problem, over the numbers
Doubling and remaining and slicing each other
Into fractions of themselves while it scratches
Them in loops and angles and slashes
Something of the language remaining
In the fires that are running, subdividing
Up and down the fibers, a dark line, an impulse
A bright line, a number, a solution
Fireworks and careful lines and bats swoop
Over the hide of a spaceship parked
Across the divider bar, numbers flung
From phasers, prickling with divisive purpose
By the numbers we are burned.

Chrissa Sandlin sneaks in writing time around laser tag with her puppies and reviewing fairy tale books for the Supernatural Fairy Tale blog.

Find more by Chrissa Sandlin in the Author Index.

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