Simplify

On a Sunday night long ago
while I was supposed to be doing homework
I stuck the point
of a cheap school compass
into a page, labeled the hole
my art and then swung
the flaking chrome arm
with its crunch-clamped pencil around
and around, calling everything inside
the circle Tony.

Years have passed and I have kept that Sabbath
holy.

It’s true that I know
there’s space outside
my limit. It’s also true
that I still don’t know what name to give
that line except that
the word for it has more
than two syllables and can’t
be pronounced more than once
in a lifetime.

Geometers
tell us that any circle that can be drawn
is only an approximation of a true circle,
which has no real dimension.
I could choose to believe them
and just erase the line,
but I’d still be stuck
with that cursed old hole.

So I tell them,

dare me
to step across that ancient and still unnamed line,
turning back to point and say
That’s been my work
and this has been my life.
Dare me to set a new point on the page
and charm myself a new circle.
The new hole will remain unnamed
because it’s only a means to an end,
Area will become my name
because it means nothing beyond cold description,
and if once before I die
I am brave enough
to call that new limit
Circumference
it will be because
at the last
I found that such simple answers
granted me the peace
to say just that
and nothing more.