MATH BACKWARDS

I start with the sum

and work my magic 

backwards—choose

and use anything

I can lay my 

mathematician hands on:

my imagination  

a protractor

decimal points

powers and roots

proofs and theorems

differential equations

Fibonacci numbers, pi

probability theory

permutations formulas

inverse trigonometry, calculus

all in an effort to create 

the equation (the problem) 

that my mind has already 

solved, so I can, 

like a modern day Pythagoras, 

play slip and slide 

up and down the slope 

of my hypothetical hypotenuse.