Monkey Mathematics
A monkey grabs one nut here, one nut
there, and two more over there.
He counts them with care.
One two three four nuts —what
a bounty! He rubs his belly,
opens the nutshells deli-
cately and eats the seeds oh-so-
slowly: four three two one —zero.
The older monkey is shrewd:
he found six nuts. He is wise, too.
From his fund he eats only two.
That leaves four unchewed
delicacies. No short of slyness
he ponders the opposite: two minus
six. His canny mind insists:
the appealing impossible exists.
Olivier Faivre is a French expatriate in the Netherlands. A physicist by training, he is currently pursuing a MA in Creative Writing at the Open University.