<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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Blackboard<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I brush chalk from my hands.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve finished.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The boy sneezes.<\/p>\n He puts his Nintendo down,<\/p>\n mutters: does that really mean anything?<\/p>\n I say: wipe your nose.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How do I tell a small, scowling child<\/p>\n that this final set of chalk marks,<\/p>\n this glorious, transcendent equation,<\/p>\n unifies the four fundamental forces?<\/p>\n How do I tell him that I have calculated<\/p>\n the true nature of gravity?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I say: yes. It explains everything.<\/p>\n It tells me why you are here,<\/p>\n where you came from, how our world<\/p>\n and all the other worlds began,<\/p>\n and how they will end.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He says: bet it can\u2019t tell me<\/p>\n what I\u2019m having for tea tonight.<\/p>\n I say: beans on toast.<\/p>\n He says: and ice-cream for pudding?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I study the chalk marks.<\/p>\n I say: yes, and ice-cream for pudding.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pippa Hennessy<\/strong> is a publisher at Five Leaves. She has published poetry in several magazines and anthologies. She was Development Director at Nottingham Writers’ Studio, and is proud to have helped Nottingham achieve UNESCO City of Literature status.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Blackboard I brush chalk from my hands. I\u2019ve finished. The boy sneezes. He puts his Nintendo down, mutters: does that really mean anything? I say: wipe your nose. How do I tell a small, scowling child that this final set of chalk marks, this glorious, transcendent equation, unifies the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15913"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16171,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15913\/revisions\/16171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}