(for A-W, AL, N, and Me)

I.
When clouds squeeze soul white down
shake off those crusted layers…

when snow waves slantways, whirl, criss, and sloped
like some incredible dream of a life that could be
that was, that reached out brave and right
to fix everything we all fucked up…

(It is night and we were crying again
but snow always makes us gasp)

When this happens: snow, gasp
falling backwards again…

All we can do is whisper your name
tell you it is snowing where we are

II.
We are masters in the art of Calculus

We tell you over and over again how the sum
of each of your actions totals 0 or
if you figure in the usurious interest, losses
incurred as result, plus the debited lifespan, -73.

We add in the imaginary numbers: i and its counterstroke -i
take their square roots and stretch them over ∞
figure their sine, cosine, and then add the fuzzy spinning radii ( ∫ )
of our reasonable irrationals

We learn to be good at both precise and intangible math

III.
The struggle is finding the question we figured the answer for
Like those Evil Word Problems our jr. high teacher tortured us with:

If the sum of actions created
by the names we whisper when snow
(the most real of imaginaries) changes life
is the cosine of (∫√2x∏r ∕ -73i)∞,
is this our worth or theirs?

This question we ache—
feeling life as an impossibly beautiful and endless joke
with no feasible achievement, end, or gain—
because no matter how many people tell us
your actions have nothing to do with ours, we know
what you were worth to us
and what we were worth to you

IV.
Which is why we call each other
gasping, purring in the night, snow around
dark dark

(the question of who we really can call
at 3am bothers us more than original gasp)

to talk, hiccup over the zero

(we want to belief in reincarnation, not cessation)

to find relief
because the person we are talking to is Everything
an infinite / a snow flurry / a massive huge grace of law and imaginary /
a dream / a disembodied shine soul swirl /
a friend

(yet someone who has felt the zero inside them)

and their chosen action
is to pick up the phone and talk to us
while the snow drifts itself around