Summer 2007

Zero
Doc Long

I was sitting in the barbershop when
A man rushed in announcing and proclaiming
He had found a number that was not a number
He had found it beneath the pillow where
Possibility slept, near a sack of toys
Owned by the wind, near the rock where Adam wept
His eyes burned in apparition

“Placed before a number it diminishes it
behind it, it grows, alone it stands for nothing
zero plus zero plus zerohas no quantity
and that is its essence,” he preached

Silence fell from eternity, and a deeper
silence from the tomb, then suddenly the
shop ignited and heaved with laughter,

And how much is half of zero?
Is it an odd or even number?

The cackling and commotion went on for close to an hour
The smell of talcum coiled in the air
The humming of clippers mounted to a roar
Some folks got up to leave, but the man continued

“It is naught, it is nil, it is null
and the only cipher of nothing
it is the sum of the void inside of space,” he hacked
and hammered a finger towards the sky.