Symmetry

I

The vision in the inkblot,
The Botticelli composition.
The molecular equation
Governs science and art.

The palindrome
In the Y chromosome
Copulates with itself,
Laughing ouroboros.

My life, Diophantine equation,
Bedevils me with xs and ys,
Holding out the promise
Of solution.

II

Twenty years old,
Évariste Galois lies dying,
Wounded in the stomach
On the duelling ground.

Mathematical papers
Wait on his desk,
A doomed man’s offering
To the god of symmetry.

The revolution starts
From one man’s misery;
A republic of ideas;
A tyranny of love.

III

I pace the room, straightening crooked pictures.
Fear writhes in the amygdala.
The butterfly’s wings are full of warning.

The righting of imbalances, the introduction
Of structure and proportion in just measure;
Therein, perhaps, lies freedom.