A Poem For My Algebra Teacher

I know I promised no more ‘Make you Cry Poems’ I said I'd never write another ‘Wipe your eye poem’ And for three years I tried not to retract, but after so many tears I have to take that promise back. I write this Thesis after going through a lost photo album, trying to trace the trails and tracks of growing up young, poor and Black, taking the sad trip back. I hope you brought your tissue with you Because my childhood was one of issues. So I give you one more poem for your eyes, and if I make you sad, I apologize. Please don’t hate me. Like Miss Holiday I been in pain lately. The doctor said I got Blues Build Up and it sits the soul like constipation. When I hold it in I get a painful burning sensation- I gotta get this shi* out of me! And since emotion is a sad reminder, Perhaps Math, Science or notion will be kinder. And to who ever said that every problem has a solution and is scientifically attainable, I hope that the equation of growing up Black and poor is equally explainable. And since I have been at the Blackboard nearly thirty years, hopefully, I won't run out of chalk before I run out of tears. The answer just has to be near. Or maybe I have the X too far to the left or the Y too far to the right, maybe there’s just a slight oversight. And so if I put this Essay to rhyme, maybe I will solve it in time Or in a lifetime. And to not solve this problem would be even more terrible, So if anyone after me tries I know I’m close, all you have to do move a few variables. For those who say Black children are educationally damned, I propose the following problem for your next SAT exam: My Black mother had nine children by six Daddies in nineteen years, and sadly only two of those Daddies stayed around more than a year- And if each week my mother lost a River of tears, what was the rate of my Mother's tears per year? For extra credit what was the total weight of her fears? You can round off to the nearest tenth. I didn’t have the strength. And if the ratio of alcohol to tears was three to one, How much whiskey did my Mother need before her life was done? If Black Mother Hubbard had no food in her cupboard, how could she keep a man much less a lover? Trying to ward off her own internal doubts, That of the eight babies only one or two would make it out. These are averages to theorize about. What do you do when the down side of your life has no reciprocal? We can search for an answer but it will prove to be difficult But she kept those blues Bottled up inside and at the age of forty-eight she died. Diagnosis suicide? When counting sorrows Do you add, multiply or divide? And your Stepfather who was opening presents on December 25th and was opening up your sister on December 24th- How do you know if an angle is acute or obtuse when one of the sides are loose, or when its base is fooling around with the hypotenuse? And though your step father wasn’t shi*, he was the best a mother with eight children could get. And learning the "Tickle Game" From your Step Father is cool I suppose, until he says, "Good, now lets play without clothes." And when the Numerator says, "Tell Mommy later!" you just know that the big bad denominator will get you…Soon or later. I guess you can call these Improper Actions. Or watching pornographic movies with him at the age of eight, when the Wonderful World of Disney or chasing a frisbee would have been just as great. And Can I ever know if it affected my fate? And if I could put her sorrows on a graph, the negative coordinates would just laugh, Realizing twenty years later That all those stolen Christmases had nothing to do with the Grinch, just your Step Father feeling a heroin pinch. How do you measure a child's heart break by square inch? Your Mother cleaning floors until Easter just to reduce the friction. Sometimes when you add up life You have to use long addition. And just maybe Pythagoras or Euclid can help me with the following: If being Black plus being poor equals being miserable squared Then what is the sum of Black Poverty squared? Einstein are you there? Some factors just refuse to be equal. Some theories just don’t need a sequel. And if I could get a scale and weigh all the pain and sorrow on one balance, more than 15 funerals, Ten molestations a dozen drug addictions, all the loved ones who have lost their "Gawd-damned minds." Would I call life cruel or kind? And your ten year old ears and ten year old eyes, hearing and seeing your mother telling the paramedic, "Leave me alone and let me die." The Circumference of Black life taste nothing like Pi. And should I best describe my Blues as a segment which has a beginning and an end or a Ray which has only a beginning… Or a line to go on and on- never ending? And when your last remaining picture of you and your mother has a junkie/ child molester in it somewhere- if I took scissors and cut him out, could I forget that he was ever there? I cried out for the divisor and the square root was scared. Superman, Batman and no other Super hero in a two-thousand mile radius cared. Still for some reason I was spared. And so I put these away these photographs, and I’m done with all this Math. The quotients are now quiet, the angles are napping with the squares, and I’m sure probability is here somewhere. I just don’t know where. Yesterday I looked at a picture of my mother on a wall and stared- Finally she is free from all those cares. What did all of her efforts gain her? And I look at myself. Perhaps I am her remainder. These are the Mathematics I love to hear. Excuse me while I wipe a tear. Well this is my Thesis for Mathematics 201. Until next time I'm done.