"Math & Magic" by Christopher Fox Graham

"Math & Magic"

by Christopher Fox Graham

Oct. 13, 2025

math explains everything
the billiard balls of atoms
the push and pull of stars’ gravity.

the geometry of moons and planets
here are no questions in the dark
we know light down to the meter
constant for all observers at all times

quarks and bosons
behave so regularly

they are quantum entangled across the universe
even beneath event horizons of black holes
where the math bends back on itself,
time and space invert
the math is consistent
but to reach the singularity to see if we’re wrong
will take an eternity
and we don't have the time

the tick tock of time is binary
future now future now
always forward, never in reverse
one directional in a three-dimensional space

we are math in Base 4
adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine
dance in infinite chains in every cell
from archaeon to sequoia
bacterium to blue whale
eukaryote to you

all your decisions are T-A-C-G reacting
G-T-A-C conversing in symphonic exaltations
C-G-A-T firing synapses of memory and thought
a trillion conversations in a cell
a trillion cells in a body
C-G-A-T-G-T-A-C-G … to infinity

the equations are complex
the mathematics monumental
but the outcome is predictable
if you know the math

before poetry, I wanted to be an astrophysicist
to study the grand scale of math in the cosmos
calculate if the stars were where we mapped them
bending to the calculations in our dissertations

I wanted the heavens
because the math down here on earth 

is so simple:
given the initial variables,
the conclusion was known
history is a repeat in new uniforms
adults equations to anticipate and counter
leaders pushing and pulling people in predictable patterns
every government, a grown child
fighting over toys
offended by meanies and bullies
lashing out when offended

and every love affair was science
first hello, first kiss, first night
after enough bedpost notches
why bother investing in the story
when you know the last chapter?
when the mathematics were clear
knowing how the relationship would end

science is repeating the same experiment
and getting the same results

but I didn’t account for magic
because I didn’t know it before her

she knows music 

the progression of chords over space and time
the arrangement of instruments
when to play hard tones and softness
but confined to these bodies
even innovation has its limitations

she learned the mathematics
could play Chopin and Schubert from memory
stretch her tiny hands
across Rachmaninoff’s eleven keys
admiring the passion and the complexity
with which he composed
she made music into magic

we collided on the sidewalk
halfway between newsroom and crystal shop
where I dissected the world for easier consumption
and she channeled the universe
me, planning every footfall
to seem non-chalant
she, an allegro improvisation
a manic-pixie dream girl
who shattered that archetype
every chance she had

she conjures magics her movements
she can play me like a concerto
dancing her fingers across my skin
beneath the anodyne arithmetic

there's no formula to counter her
no constant to calculate
no equation to balance the scales
mathematic or melodic
eight years on, I’m still out of my league
playing boxed-in chess
all the options predicted and calculated
trying to anticipate her next move
while she’s swirling in aerial silks
above the board
adding new pieces or spinning the table
variables changing as her hair color

henna red and electric blue
she leaves me spinning in a coda
repeating the same moment
until she comes in on cue
to her own bear

we co-authored three Haikus
Contrarian, Capricious and Chaos,
half magic and math
a quotient of imaginary and irrational numbers
a jazz trio
with a damage deposit
impossible to anticipate
every bit their mother
and somehow part of me

and she somehow still loves this computation

still trying to solve her quadratics
find her prime number solution
but she has more moves than chess
which not even all the atoms in the universe
can count
but I try
because math should explain everything

“silly mister” she says
and kisses me again
the only answer I can find

This Began With “I Miss You”

This began with “I miss you”
nestled deep in the liver of pretty words
dancing illusionary around platitudes of nostalgia
the way lynchings and pogroms and Jim Crow
take a back seat when waxing poetic about the Roaring 20s

this began Art Deco
all smooth lines and steel rising above New York City

when Chrysler and Empire State vied for the heavens

when we could still see heaven

but this revisionist history
ignores begging in breadlines for something warm at night
the amputees returning home from the trenches
missing limbs from land mines

you were the FLASH! BANG! landmine
ripping smiles from this face
leaving me to sweat you out on PTSD nights
wondering if you were coming home to finish me off

you are my thousand-yard stare

you are the war story of crashing hips and desert stories
I would tell the neighbors
when they asked about the scars too visible to conceal

this began “I miss you,”
because I can still remember the beginning
when butterflies fluttered in the gut portending the future
back before we learned to fuck the way movie stars taught us:
well lit, in focus, every inch of skin captured center frame,
each retelling revealing more secrets than the last
until I could quote your inches from exposition to ending credits
even now, I can chart your body, knee to nape, lip to clit
like a family farm a man spent 90 years
getting ready to be buried in

your blustering winds do not make you a hurricane
you are not Salamis 
nor Trafalgar
and this is no “I miss you” poem

because I do not miss you

no one misses fatal car accidents
we were a slow-motion rollover
ejecting victims through the windshield face-first

after you found me inhabiting the suburbs of your heart
fostering your broken parts like they were my own children
you began pushing me out one brutal word at a time
no refugee misses the ethnic cleansing
that leaves them in the wilderness

you left me in the wilderness
of this place
in my own chest
surrounded by strange tongues that speak unfamiliar words
like “lover” and “future”
I had found a home in the forever changing definitions of “us”
never expecting to be the only one to remember it that way

you were the memory

I was the action

you were the story

I was the author

but you lit the manuscript on fire
drained the blood from all of my inkwells
broke pens like fingers
and cut the voice from my throat
leaving me to point at strangers
mouth useless words,
knowing they do not understand

you are breathtaking,

but that is no compliment

you hover between regret and unfortunate accident
haunting the stairwells of this cold, empty house
the image of a girl I can see in the television static
around 2 a.m. between the whiskey and the dawn
a tree in winter that I’m not certain is dead or dormant

this began “I miss you,”
this will end with, “I survived you”but we are still somewhere else

a wounded diver in shark-infested waters
and I cannot see the shore

we are the firing squad bullet between rifle and

let justice be done

a hand grenade frozen beautiful in a starburst
before shrapnel turns a dreamer
into a dying, wounded animal

"In the Blood" by Christopher Fox Graham

"In the Blood"

by Christopher Fox Graham

Fair warning,
you die first.

"...written with his own blood" by Janina-Photography

I know, you’re thinking that with all my whiskey nights
I’d cease the fight first
but fate plays dice —
my eulogy isn’t profound, but between us
it’s the only poem worth all the blood I’ve verbalized
my heart beats after yours
because I never could imagine the world without you
so you had to show me the hard way
even this old, I’m still chasing you
like I did at the beginning

— 10 —

Our daughters visit one by one
find me holding one hand
while a machine holds the other
beeping,
beeping,
beeping
with clockwork regularity
counting down the heartbeats you have left —
I read you 60 years of blood poured into poems
“The Peach” still makes you laugh

— 9 —

We send our son a message to the colony on Mars
he can never visit,
when he boarded the shuttle
we knew it was a one way trip
I tell him to hold his sons tonight
gaze across the terrain
and remember that the red in his blood
is deeper and darker
binding him forever to home

— 8 —
On the first day of our retirement
we burn all your business cards
and all my button-down white shirts —
we make love in the kitchen like horny teenagers
I later find your red underwear in the sink —
the pasta boils over and burns the pot
so we feed it to the neighbors’ dog
you hate the neighbors
but like the dog

— 7 —
after my wedding toast,
I swing dance with our youngest daughter at the reception
because I save all my slow dances for you
rest my hand in the small of your back
kiss your crimson lips like the first time
when we get to our empty nest,
we split a bottle of Jameson
and wake cuddling each other’s pounding hangovers

— 6 —
you get almost leave me three times
the first two are admittedly my fault —
I don’t learn about the third until years later
when your reasons have faded to such silliness
you laugh when you tell me why
I buy red roses for a month anyway

— 5 —
in the Red Chair Hotel lounge in Prague
we hold hands
not saying a word
and for an hour
no one else enters
that was the moment —
the one I’d hold onto
when asked,
“what was the best day of your life?”

— 4 —
By the last one, you’re a pro —
but you leave my arm bruised
when our first child is born
one fingernail drew blood
and the scar is my joy
that I became a father

— 3 —
the proposal was unexpected
I stood on the stage
performing a poem you’d heard before
but you noticed two lines changed
and midway through, a new stanza flipped the meaning
before I dropped to a knee and asked
the time penalty cost me points
and the other poets called you a “prop”
but we got four 10s and a red heart
when you said "yes"

— 2 —
I apologize for our third date
everything goes wrong
the restaurant is terrible
you kiss me so deep I get hiccups
the sex is sloppy
I cut my hand changing the flat tire
so the first time you say it
I am staring at the bloody bandage
wondering about stitches
so I have to ask, “what do you say?!”

— 1 —
I small talk
to mask my skipping heart
although I can’t tell if you like me
when you finally ask me out
blood rushes from my fingers and toes
leaving me warmly cold

but all the way home
I think how the first poem
should start at the end
and work backward
so the only mistake I’ll ever regret
was waiting so long to begin