Katherine folds her hands on a wooden desk.
She likes math, full of equal signs and question marks,
English, French, every class but history,
which seems bent on making girls like her invisible
or in need of rescue. She’d rather look ahead than back.
Katherine loves the swoop of her math teacher’s arm
before the board black as the night sky.
Miss Turner introduces the sign for infinity,
like the numeral eight lying on its side.
Katherine is fourteen when her teacher asks her
to join her for supper, talks about going north
in the summer to earn an advanced degree
in math at Cornell University.
On the porch, sitting on green wicker chairs,
Miss Turner names the constellations.
They both love what can’t be counted or divided.