After/Math

by Dan Murphy

In high school Math, we studied imaginary numbers,
searched for imaginary solutions
to problems without real answers.
We chain–smoked Camels out a dorm window fan
in New England winter, asking what it meant

under blacklight to feel alive. In Cosmology
we had to identify stars and myths, many already burnt out.
In Religious Philosophy, every author we read was dead,
and they’d written about it, but before, when they were alive.
After I had found you, dead, hanging with questions

you and I could not answer, they told me you’d listened
in another room to Cathedrals — a song we loved together —
on repeat. Then your sneakers tip–toed. Then your mouth
quieted with foam. You became an image, then, no longer
yourself,
but a brief residue of light that holds moments

as in an old photograph or a textbook of History
that is both true and false, like the light of a star
no one else has seen or named. I retur
to that song Cathedrals now and again, as if I’m mapping
the notes that spoke to you. As though I’m listening

to my own death, each word a star to which I draw
my own myth. I found out, after, that imaginary numbers serve
a purpose: when used to manipulate sound, they can decompose
space and time, such that one whisper can be heard,
alone, among a whole chapel of wailing.

N.B. The poem “After / Math” originally appeared in the Winter 2023 issue of The Café Review and was errantly attributed to a poet by the same name whose work was also included in that issue. This reprint appears as acorrection, along with the author’s correct CV in the contributors’ section.