In Which I Make the Case I Am Not Stupid (the Cognitive Assessment)

In Which I Make the Case I Am Not Stupid (the Cognitive Assessment)

Allison Ruvidich

One lamb secret kitten secret seven shame

What a titan of shame,

what a colossus

to speak before this court of one and make the case

that I am not stupid.

On a better day I will argue the very idea,

take apart the concept,

whip its etymology up in the

course of my argument,

blunt it with its own historic blade, but today,

I will only fight.

One lamb seven kitten secret seven shame

It was a summer night, and we were eating

dinner on the porch when they realized

I could not tell them what number

added to eight made ten.

Four, or six, and shouting,

and the dinner guests embarrassed.

One lion septum kitten seven secret shame

That was the secret I kept,

that words barely mean anything,

but numbers are nothing;

they are marks and drips and blots on the page.

And that is a secret we have all kept together, right?

When we whisper to Siri,

what is sixteen minus seven?

Because the lines are water running out.

And so this case is no more than

a legal exercise, an impossible thought experiment,

a brief suspension of our infinite reason

for a moment of whimsy,

because I cannot be the only one who sees the

nothing

all the way down.

Nothing and nothing make nothing,

no difference, no sum of an act

equally impossible for us all.

Five Seven Thirthrenty

But say that it isn’t as impossible for you.

Tell me that I’m still not stupid.

Say that these lines mean something.

Please, let me finally rest my case.

Maybe there is a world where eight and four make ten, where I wrote this poem in one sitting in a clean apartment, where stupid is a swear word on late night TV. Let’s believe it, you and me, for a few words longer, and as long as we say it together

Our stupid words have meaning.

-Allison Ruvidich is a first-year graduate student from Chatham County, NC, pursuing a master’s degree in Information Science.-