Euler’s Equation

Let me draw a sonnet at this godless hour,
in one sitting, at the sudden taste of you.

#SelfEvidentTruth: reality forms from the verge
of chance—particles not seen but tongued.

Another you wafts in as soon as the other
you leaves, my random turnstile of thirst.

But suddenly, alone. Just a memory of taste:
Poached eggs, pancakes, tenderness, knowing

that I have eaten not only what I made but what all
of you served in return, quenched only if swallowed.

Taste has always been a second-rate sense,
unlike our sight, unlike Euler’s Equation that

sees light in chaos. All works of nature evolve
from one moment of coincidence. An absence,

a rebellion, the fifteenth line of a sonnet.

Copyright © 2022 by Bino A. Realuyo. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 25, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“I have a love affair with the sonnet form. I love how its compactness challenges my writing of something as benign as a gay love affair, and involves all the senses. I love how something so seemingly short—just like ‘Euler’s Equation’ could present a whole universe of possibilities. I have a love affair with science, and writing sonnets is my way of talking to scientists like Leonhard Euler or Paul Dirac, paying tribute to their bright minds. I’m grateful for their rebellions and presences in our age of disinformation.”
—Bino A. Realuyo