My Daughter Asks When Numbers End by Matthew J. Andrews

and I struggle to explain infinity,

that there is a road with no terminus

at either end, the concept so foreign

to the finitude that surrounds us:

the orange rotting in the fruit bowl,

the wilted flower, the dead cat

we found in the street on our walk.

Even the greatest of human minds,

the ones that calculate the dilation

of time when it is twisted and warped,

can only fathom that all things begin,

that all things must eventually end,

eternity a leap too far into imagination.

But she presses, so I do my best,

telling her that while everything falls

like leaves from a tired branch

after autumn casts its dreary twilight,

the numbers keep rising, one digit

at a time, like rungs of a ladder,

evidence that there is a place

in the sky to which we can climb. 

Matthew J. Andrews is a private investigator and writer. He is the author of the chapbook I Close My Eyes and I Almost Remember, and his poetry has appeared in Rust + Moth, Pithead Chapel, and EcoTheo Review, among others. He can be contacted at matthewjandrews.com.