The mathematics of Crohn disease

Image courtesy of Anna Hooser

Curled up like a sow bug in retreat, map in hand,

he is calculating the distance from his couch

to the store, circling the pinpoints

of known or surmised available bathrooms.

He’s assaying the time between bouts

of seizing, ignited guts. It’s been days

since he felt wind sting his eyes, tears

being his secret talisman of health.

His work hours are honed and divided.

Refusing taboo, he’s informed his students

the square root of disease is mutation

and mutation is a statistical entity,

though it doesn’t imply disease…

the opposite of “mutant” is not “normal”

but “wild type.” Not a badger or wolverine,

but wild as in preponderance of the similar,

as in, the many three-leaf clovers.

With luck, what can’t be controlled is kept

out of sight. He tries to escape

rank memories that shrink him

to a baby: a caretaker handling him roughly,

her nose wrinkled and breath held,

a voice mewling eeww, memories that cinch him

into a corner shrouded in shame.

So much that is indigestible,

like the soil from coiled ropes of his colon—