A Saturday. Maths (of course) the first class
For VIc. Multiplying the times he has done
So, Mr Kerman checks the roll-call, pass-
ing down the exiguous set of unknowns. Only one
Name has to be subtracted: Alan Mur-
gatroyd. Off sick is the number he
And his mates have hashed together. But with too-per-
fect rigour, as if a step axiomatic to the nth degree,
I add: “Up at the Albert Hall, sir, queu-
ing for the Proms.” Decades after, I gather he’s died
In an easily avoided car smash. I calculate if those few
Seconds and their centimetres had counted, if I was the divide.
For at root, however well or badly we behave,
The sums of our actions are those we will kill or save.
For VIc. Multiplying the times he has done
So, Mr Kerman checks the roll-call, pass-
ing down the exiguous set of unknowns. Only one
Name has to be subtracted: Alan Mur-
gatroyd. Off sick is the number he
And his mates have hashed together. But with too-per-
fect rigour, as if a step axiomatic to the nth degree,
I add: “Up at the Albert Hall, sir, queu-
ing for the Proms.” Decades after, I gather he’s died
In an easily avoided car smash. I calculate if those few
Seconds and their centimetres had counted, if I was the divide.
For at root, however well or badly we behave,
The sums of our actions are those we will kill or save.
(9.7.1997)
