ISSUE 8 | JANUARY 2024 | WOMAN ISSUE
after Harryette Mullen
0, 1, 1, 2, 3 …
(THERE IS NO EVIDENCE ANCIENT GREEK MATHEMATICIANS KNEW OF THE FIBONACCI SERIES)
Current Number + Previous Iteration = New
∴ 0 + 1 = 1 How can 1 arrive before 0?
1 + 0 = 1 This body knows sin
1 + 1 = 2 it arrived dented/right on the forehead.
Once you touch something it is no longer 0
Current + Previous = New?
0+0 = 0? Sit awake with me in this graph scape
0+0 = 0? I begin with nothing, hands tied
as I was
born in between the folds
of winter. Spry &spring.
(Listen. Before there was
nothing & then jajajajajajajaja. Emerging from internet blue pool,
water falls away & mud-cracks on the skin
often a person is alone, counting their pace
amoeba reverse swirled into itself)
Current + Previous = New
1 + 0 = 1 Where from this 1?
1+1 = 2 I awoke & 1?
In this chapter, an ape type falls from tree. Now humans birthed cross the world awake & ask why alive?
Reiterate the beginning/sin:
0 + 1 = 1 1 get behind thee
1+0 = 1 40 days/nights many subdivisions
1 + 1 = 2 mornings/afternoons mourning dawn
1 + 0 = 1 I have 1 in this pitch blackness/tar/the sound of ship unoriented on my shores
1 + 0 = 1 A false start/opens book/sputters lungs over laid pages
1+ 1 = 2 Test the beaker. Fall after a Benjamin Banneker into this dark
& be born! In debted/marked in the skin/coarse in the teeth
1 + (-1) = 0 Count the tethering days
0 + 1 = 1 Oware/sow seeds in someone else’s house
1 + 0 = 1 O I will sit there
1 + 1 = 2 O I will stare here
2 + 1 = 3 because I wills it.
PIN ITMichelle N’ankra Oppong
Michelle N’ankra Oppong is a poet currently in an MFA program. Her primary focus and thesis are on recontextualizing living spaces such as rooms and houses, through the lens of blackness, identities, mathematical concepts, politics, body, and various sentimentalities.
Social Media
Twitter:@akos_dbandit
Photo by Ludde Lorentz on Unsplash