Heikki Huotari

Pont-au-change, Paris 1854, Charles Meryon

Esperanza

1. bring on board the expectation       as electric circuit is to spring-mass-damper so prepared remark to from-the-heart       the negative of face-to-face a vase       the moving sidewalk doesn’t end but your connection does       when relegated to miscellany your knowledge of position and your knowledge of velocity may simultaneously fade       it’s good to stop and smell the rotting carcass but it’s better yet to roll in it and take your essence with you to the ozone an       air-pressure differential will cause doors to open on their own

2. the houses as time passes migrate with the climate       not one christian soldier marches as to war       as oscillations not orthogonal are micromanaged so I’ll have a hive mind don’t mind if I do       I’ll be so full of grace my books will balance on their own my students will have social skills       as misdirected as is expectation mountain dwellers crave confinement       as the content may have shifted so the consolation may I find the prize like Einstein        may I drive the speed of light from information to misinformation       may my moving sidewalk never end

3. blesséd are the shivering for they’ll be blanketed       commemorated       one leg short the water table wobbles       take your grievance and your gratitude outside the opaque is the enemy of the translucent       if Narcissus manifests with bits of wisdom insulating my surround the indistinguishable faces of a tetrahedron bring to me my volatile organic compound       it’s a crystal       every day is prestidigitation day       the probability of partly sunny is the probability of partly cloudy and the novel by analogy is known

4. consistent with the trivial equivalence       for every x and every y       x and y are related       when the demonstrators let their limbs go limp the police wave their sticks       if walking is not falling so is flying       when blood rushes to my head my spine aligns with gravity in but one of two ways       she loves me and she loves my dog or not        try what the climate migrants try       an harp said Ezra Pound ironically upending an erosion an inclusive or       don’t put the fire out till you see the dark parts of their eyes       it’s always all about the living thing


Heikki Huotari attended a one-room school and spent summers on a forest-fire lookout tower. Since retiring from academia/mathematics he has published poems in numerous literary journals, including Pleiades, Spillway, The American Journal of Poetry and Willow Springs, and in five collections.

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Spring 2022