By Johannah Racz Knudson
A century isn’t long
though some say so.
It’s just over 100 years
since Einstein’s equation.
He walked New Jersey
puffing smoke and now,
at the grocery store,
we see the pores of his face
on the cover of Time or Newsweek,
that same black and white
photo of him looking straight
into the lens, under the head
line What is Genius? They drop
the bomb to annihilate
the question. We are innocent
though some may say
not. They may say advanced
or innovative or cruel or
stupid,
We draw equations
down to their primitive
elements. An equals sign
comforts. The bomb drops.
I wish the
numbers. We are absolved
by certain variables.
Johannah Racz Knudson works from Fort Collins, Colorado as a poet, writer, and writing coach. Her poetry has appeared in Sycamore Review, Puerto del Sol, Northwest Review, Peregrine, Superstition Review, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA from Colorado State University and is a two-time winner of the AWP Intro Journals Award. In addition to poetry, Johannah is writing Transylvania Blue, a biography of one man’s survival across the forests of WWII Europe.