Abacus
In the classroom veneered tabletops,
showing repeated waves of grain,
support paint, paper, an abacus.
The crossbeams like blinds
secured by primary colours,
the abacus filters sums.
A slow game of marbles
that you cannot play.
They are abacus beads.
You learn about Richard of York,
threaded spheres of blue, red, yellow.
Abacus, fractured rainbow.
Moulded paint pastels
strung on cool wire, but
you can only paint numbers.
Counting in discreet units,
the abacus will never blur
like the paints in the water jar.
Cold metal swings through my fingers
as I teach tens and units,
while you sing marbles.
My baby plays with her abacus,
symbol of mathematics,
shaking to my song,
while the abacus counts
the years from childhood,
without an hourglass’s inevitability.
© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2010
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