Learning Multiplication

The multiplication table

in front of me 

claimed 9 x 7 equals 63. 

I’d never seen such beauty. 

I’d tried my hand at poetry

but the words had never 

amounted to anything.

It was the straightforward seven. 

It was the curly nine. 

It was they way they

were separated by an x 

and became sixty-three—

what clarity. 

Someday I’ll hold in my hand

thousands of the letters of 

the alphabet 

and throw them all into the air 

letting them land where they may. 

There I’ll see “sixty-three”

and someone will notice me