Tipton Poetry Journal – Summer 2021
26 Gilbert Allen Ancient for a gymnast? True. But boyish for starting quarterbacks, callow for first-year congressmen. Depressing as a debutante's enviable waistline, or her final exam in math. Yet how godly for the Sunday back nine holes at Augusta National! Irons (forged FE 26) just made that green jacket happen. Keats died in sight of 26— less than three to the third power, more than five raised to the second. No time to overtake Shakespeare or even Milton, but enough perhaps to sweep the 35s. Quantifiable Arabic replacement for XXVI space/time dimensions, albeit too old for Selective Service, underage for a senator. Versed well in Psalm 136 (where His mercy endureth as X in some divine equation, Yahweh in numerology) Z's our latter-day Omega.
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