BACK OF THE ENVELOPE

Archimedes Screwed

By PEGGY LANDSMAN | 08 FEB 2022

By Viviane Sassen — Bathtub and Eigg by Odd Wellies / CC BY 2.0

Unable at birth
to give birth to himself,
a man like any other,
Archimedes acquiesced,
left that labor for his mother.

Archimedes is cursed.
He’s obsessed.
He knows he’ll never find
that lever that is long enough,
that perfect place to stand.

Mother Earth spins unperturbed,
buoyant,
in spite of math.

Mother Earth remains unmoved
by upstarts puny as any man,
as naked in the bath.

Peggy Landsman is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Our Words, Our Worlds (Kelsay Books) and To-wit To-woo (Foothills Publishing). Her poems appear or are forthcoming in many literary anthologies and journals, including Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse (Lost Horse Press), SMEOP Urban (Black Sunflowers Poetry Press), Mezzo Cammin, and Scientific American. She lives in South Florida where she swims in the warm Atlantic Ocean every chance she gets.