Add One

She’s five.

Wants to know

What infinity is.

I try: you take the biggest

Number, you think the last

Number there is, and you add

One more.

See?

You can always add one.

So then the number’s

Bigger still.

Infinity means—

The numbers go on

Forever.

She thinks. Index finger raised.

Swiveling innocently Elvis-style

Hips in her big-girl jeans

And shaking her pigtails

In a trance of musing. Then

Cocks her head, terrier-set:

“Is it like, God is still

Alive, making numbers?”

Now, who told her—it wasn’t me!—

That God and infinity

Are spoken in one breath?

That what’s infinite

Must be divine?

Who, I ask you?