So, You Want to Learn Geometry

Now that Geometry has come within
your sphere of interest, we should have a talk.
It’s my area of expertise—has been
ever since I first held a piece of chalk.

First, tell me about your ancestry—
Are your roots square? Or full old scandals,
Love triangles concurrently dancing
a rhombus in an acute pair of sandals?

I’m sorry—it’s rude to make a point of this,
and perhaps seems a bit of a tangent,
but if you’ll be scalene the heights of these
new dimensions, we have to supplement

our regular evaluations with
something more oblique, which is of use
in this weather—you know that whenever it’s
over 90° out you get all obtuse.

But gliding right along… let’s say you do
take up this line of work. You’ll see that it is
similar but not quite congruent to
other things—at least on the surface.

Translate what you know already. You’ll find
volumes of complementary skills,
for everything, studied to its depth, winds
up at the same place. Math, like Truth, drills

down to the same center, the spinning axis,
radiating laws of the universe,
axioms outlasting death and taxes….
for a field of study, you could do worse.