I’m working on a poem called Math In The Sky, after watching a streetman doing sums in the air like chalk to a chalkboard and noticing him make a mistake. I fretted about it, since I could see he was going astray and his total would be off. He noticed my dismay and said:
there there, everything’s going to be alright.
But you made a mistake, I blurted (damn!) and we both looked to the air where the sums had been going on, like we could read them to see where the mistake was.
After a couple beats we looked at each other like the other was completely insane, and backed off with soft, distracted humming.
Oh…
…God.
So the plan is to pass out 1,000 marshmallows on bamboo skewers prior to the burn. You know, for the kids.
We have to think of a slogan to advertise our free specialty, although I’m sure we’ll be mobbed by marshmallow-seekers eager to rob the burn of its special fuzzy sacredness. And it’s just one marshmallow per stick, which, by the way, could really hurt someone. I’ll ignore the liability and return to the conceptual: I like the forlorness of one marshmallow vs. 40-foot burning man.
I see you holding your ‘mallow to the roaring sky, turning, turning, turning, pulling back and inspecting, saluting again and turning, turning, turning, pulling back and frowning, almost done, salute once more, and resist the temptation to just light the little fella on fire and blow him out with little sugar-happy poofs. Salute, but do it carefully…
…or you’ll knock one of the sums off the sky.