Brunelleschi's Equation

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Brunelleschi's Equation

By Heidi Atwood

The sinking centers
of my grandmother's cakes
are points of parting. Lines
divide slice from slice and pull us
towards an altered landscape.

This is how we paint the geometry of loss:
crumbs curving the edge
of a cake that once was there,
our mouths waiting to recieve
stiff ridges of icing

like mountain spines drawn to crucifix
on Cezanne's San Victoire,
and later, Mansfield, our hikes
to peaks we could not see;
tundra grass swept between stone.

Half-way up
you told me I should not wait
as you leaned against a tree
longing for water.

At the summit I could not see.
you had slipped past
the vanishing point into a world
beyond absence.