Mathematics
I loathe Mathematics. There. It is said.
Words inspire. Numbers fall out of my head
Hours spent with Miss Kay patiently trying
To decodify the mystifying
To open up sums in after-school classes
For the puzzled boy in National Health glasses
My pencil falters on the eights and nines
The rubber shreds scraps of tears on the lines
Plus times divide minus brain equals pain
And I wait to be told I’m wrong again
Is not applying himself as he should
And is hampered by stupid mistakes
Wrapped tight by number bonds I writhe and twist
Enduring the grind of arithmetic’s fist
Knuckling my temple, a permanent bruise
As the symbols stagger, blind and confuse
Then we chant the tables missed from my head
I mouth, with no sound, nothings instead
Seven eights, eight sevens. Who really cares?
When there are stories to live some other where
Not up to standard – must make more effort
Disappointing – he needs to work harder
Algebra flogging logic to the root
Here’s some Geometry, obtuse and acute
Quadratic something. Completing the square
What square?
Trig can give me the height of a tree
From a ladder and shadow at half past three
But I could rest in the hornbeam’s cool shade
And never worry what angles it made
Unfailingly cheerful – with little cause
He needs to focus on his Maths test scores
Many years later I fulfil a vow
To my daughter whom I told that somehow
I would sit GCSE Maths and pass
I joined an adult numeracy class
All of us had chewed the gristle of sums
And tasted failure on our school-tied tongues
But we loosed those bonds and ripped ourselves free
And five decades on, I got a Grade C
I still loathe Maths, I avoid x and y
You can keep your numbers – I’ll write ‘til I die