Fish And Arabs Poem by Daniel Karbon

Two cups of coffee onehundredandeight grams of Ritalin and I
Still don't feel like paying attention to
Geography.
Maps don't breathe.
They don't say all that much, either.
The woman at the front of the class can speak, though
She can breathe
And she does
Splendidly
But still she kneels
Beneath all of the colors, shapes, and numbers
That tell her just where exactly it is
That she lives.
Numbers were invented by dusty dehydrated Arabs who merely wished to keep track of their wares
A little better
So that their wives and daughters would have just a little more salt
Than the wives and daughters next door.
Colors were invented by eyes which in turn were invented by fish
Who wanted to know more about what they were eating
That's all.
And shapes?
They've never really existed, anyway.
So what is it we've built?
What would the Arabs and
The fish have to say
About the things we've done with their clever ideas
All of our hair dye and cable television
All the fire we've dropped on foreign rooftops
All the blood we've spilled in prison libraries
All the atoms we've cracked open
Something tells me
They wouldn't be all that interested.
The Arabs, though, might enjoy comparing the sturdy breast and proud stature
Of the professor
To the women they've left behind,
Some of the brave ones might even
Say hello
After class.
And then, maybe, one of them might ask her to dinner, and maybe she'd say yes,
And then they would go and sit in comfortable chairs and drink cool water, as much as they wanted
And a young man would bring them fried fish and they'd try
Against all odds to make each other laugh in just the right way
So that they would forget how to count and
Remember how to breathe.