The distance between rage and miracle

I said at dinner, When I was immortal then . . .
A guest interrupts, when were you immortal?

so yes, I back track because she’s a philosopher.
She’s a philosopher, so yes I back track

and say before I knew, before waiting for the tests.
Before I knew, before the tests, before the waits,

mortality belonged to another generation, or a book.

In the book mortality belonged to another generation
though somehow I made it to the front of the line.

Somehow I made it to the front of the line
so I told the philosopher, ok, I forgot.

I forgot the disconsolations of philosophy—
the long distance between rage and miracle.

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Carol Dorf is a Zoeglossia fellow, whose books include Theory-Headed Dragon. Their writing appears on the Poetry Foundation website, and in journals including Pleiades, About Place, Cutthroat, The Museum of Americana, Exposition Review, Unlikely Stories, The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, Scientific American, and Maintenant. They are founding poetry editor of Talking Writing and taught math in Berkeley USD. They have led poetry workshops in venues that include Berkeley City College, conferences, and science museums.