Preformism II

At the kitchen table my daughter plays
connect      the      dots.
Focusing on forming
            straight lines, crafting her predetermined picture.

I connect the dots. A family triangle:
         husband      
wife            daughter

He and I form hypotenuse
an acute angle between us
         obtuse, isosceles, scalene
words that sounded exotic in math class when we learned of Pythagoras.
      I loved the neatness of
his         theory:                  the simplicity
of   squares               and roots.
Later, Pythagoras betrayed me.

His other theory: spermism
tiny perfect humans housed in sperm.
Fathers: give essential characteristics to child
mothers: only material substrate.

I am only a house, soil to grow, only brick and stone, stagnant wood.

Aristotle agreed,
spread his sperm-thoughts through Europe.

      How great men belittle us.

A little homunculus inside sperm growing to child to great man
      homunculus: Latin for little man.
All children are little men,
            women aren’t born but like houses, constructed.

My daughter: no longer
at the table
      how could she continue to grow
from little-man homunculus
                                          so she didn’t