First Offense

Travelers will talk
About traveling,
And the down and out

Will tell each other
About being down
And out, what would be

Humiliating
To the propertied.
And so on. Each group

Gets its lingo. Math
Makes small talk among
Mathematicians.

This doesn’t mean shared
Language is the point.
This isn’t language

Or dialect but
Shared references
To common events,

However they’re shared,
To the kinds of things
That happen to those

People in that group.
If you can refer
To experience

Of typical things
For a given group
You might just belong,

You may be welcomed,
Fellow traveler,
Mathematician,

Person who’s struggling
With how things went wrong,
Person who’s learned that

The worst temptation
In recognizing
What’s wrong is thinking

Because you noticed
Clearly what went wrong
You’re someone likely

To have some insight
Into what should be
Done to make things right.