Dividing By Zero (Another New Poem)

I've written another poem. This one, I'll dedicate to my wife Cindy (like most of them), but also to all the cool Math teachers everywhere.


Dividing By Zero 

To not divide by zero was the rule
My teacher taught in elementary school.
Upon you Something Bad must needs be wrought
The day you make denominators naught.

You cannot find that quotient if you try!
(She never would reveal the reason why.)
“It’s undefined,” she said, but what she meant
Was, “To define it, I’d need your Mom’s consent.”

She couldn’t speak of orgasms or anti-matter –
Too risqué the former, too arcane the latter.
And so she had no licit language to employ
In explanation of Divide By Zero joy.

But children do not stay in school forever,
So I went out with hot Numeric Fever,
Grabbing sundry numerators by the collar,
Dividing them by numbers smaller and smaller.

Until one day I divided my failure
By my wife’s negligible lack of valor.
We shot up like tan(x) at 1.57,
Far up off the graph, beyond the highest heaven.

So, all you grade school kids, don’t play the hero;
You must be THIS tall to divide by zero.


© 2015, Paul W. Erlandson