Why I Have Never Trusted Math

Why I Have Never Trusted Math

　
Perhaps it began
When I was small,
In the days of the spirit copier
lavender numbers on a math work sheet
Faint at best,
Made fainter still by thrift

　
Pale ghosts of sixes
Could fade
To fives under my straining eyes,
Changing the outcome
Of a third grade math problem
Dramatically

　
Even in junior high,
With crisply printed text books
Decimal points
Winked in and out
With the slightest shift in the angle of light
On the white page.
　

By the time I reached algebra,
I had no faith
In the figures on the blackboard
Calculations changing
Chameleon like
With the disappearance, or magical insertion of
A small punctuation mark
An eight, deflecting fluorescent light
From its right hand curves could
So easily become a three.
　

And in chemistry,
The delicate line on a slide rule
Wiggling ever so slightly
Transforming my calculations
Into errors,
Careless work,
Failing grades.

　
Even now, I comprehend,
But mistrust
The principles of percentages
And averages

　
These days
It seems a fine mistrust,
Worth cultivating even

　
When
Bankers
Can not explain
How the subtraction
Happened,
Where billions of dollars
Of other people's money went

　
How can I possibly believe the math
Of politicians
Who insist
That the wealthy suffer unbearably
Under a modest tax increase,
Yet the child going to bed hungry
Has lost nothing
With the subtraction of Food Stamps.

　
And must I really believe
Advertisers
When they tell me
How out of step I am
By being in the minority
Failing
To own a television
Smart phone
Or gun