Timorous Trigonometries
by Mark Todd

“The limit of ‘the secant line’ is ‘the tangent line.’”
	– John H. Matthews & Russell W. Howell,
	  “The Tangent Parabola” in The AMATYC Review

Their remarks cut seldom
perpendicular, nor to the heart’s
core,
          hers a secant
of intent, an entry aimed
to exit near his fleshed
circle of defense, and bleeding

thin remorse.
                        But truer
than his glancing tangents,
never deep enough to bruise
or leave a scar worth
healing.
               These geometers
who dally, who trig
with shallow words
that never touch.

_____

Mark Todd teaches at Western State College of Colorado, where he also serves as program director for Western’s MFA in Creative Writing. He has two collections of published poetry, Wire Song (Conundrum, 2001), and Tamped, But Loose Enough to Breathe (Ghost Road, 2008).