Absence is the finest thing—
subtracting — one from one —
makes a sum without a witness.

If it isn’t in the equation it was never
in the room. Implied when it is built in.
The empty chair denoting gone, the table
goning still — But what of me?
Do I not suggest

a something-ever-not-present — some
intention in the form? I cultivate
aloft, could not fit my figure
to the world. I circumvent

quotidian. Here is how to possess
a negative: I felt a cleaving in my mind
and let the halves just sit there.

Sophie Weiner is a poet from Baltimore, Maryland. She is the poetry editor for New Limestone Review at the University of Kentucky. Her poems have appeared in Runestone and White Stag.