Unlike Pie

Unlike Pie

(“Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who are in prison with me and are prominent among the apostles. They belonged to the Messiah before I did.” Romans 16:7)

I cannot fit me on this piece of paper,
I cannot fit me inside your head.
All you know are slices of me, no
matter how long our mutual road.
All you know are minutes and seconds,
and days occasionally,
but, unlike pie,
every slice of me is different. Every radii
leads to a different face of my circumference.

If I turned on my axis slightly
since the last time you saw my face,
would see the tears or my eyes shining brightly?
Would you remember, once you walked away,
when I told you the truth that was like a scab,
and unrolled my rind to show the scars within?

I cannot fit in the universe,

I cannot fit within your perimeter.
All you know is mixed with
all you think should be,
and you do not know the volume of me.
But the partial eclipse made you
turn away from me
before you knew the depth of me,

And before you revealed the hidden
pulp beneath your skin
you turned again
to offer the gleeful shell of one
who is certain of every spark in the universe,
every opinion offered in the dark.

But me, I am unbreakable, though I’ve been
harvested, winnowed and threshed.
I have not been broken, I am not a fraction,
I have been opened and refreshed while
others just examined my remains.