Daughter, Dactylonomist

Even now, she sings under
Her breath and flicks her fingers
Open, then curls them back in

To solve problems in her head.
Exponents are throwing her—
She learned multiplication

As sets of counting-by tunes,
And tends to answer times three
When asked for the third power

Of anything. Anything
Is difficult to answer
Culture, when what culture wants

Is your participation
As a useful member, skilled
At answering to culture,

Whatever culture you’ve found
Yourself born into, enmeshed
Since birth, or sometimes, worse, thrown

Into, far from your culture
Of birth, by dislocations
Political, religious,

Linguistic, familial,
Or just technological.
In the car, tapping her phone,

She wonders aloud, why these
Glowing keyboard arrangements
Put letters in all the wrong

Places, scattered inanely,
As if purely to make more
Work for her flicking fingers.

History’s hard to follow,
Convulsed and convoluted.
Explanation takes too long.

She’s counting the ways to win
Through her own application.
Count turns through the maze you’re in.