The Measure of All Things

And all of them seeking pleasure,
Limited quantities,
Limitless, infinite,
(Their mathematicians, sitting in
Cramped spaces,
Crowded chairs) their desire
Giving birth to more desires,
More to be desired,
In less time, less space...

A: "I knew their world.
Everything reduced to more or less.
I reduced and it reduced to more or less."

B: "Knew their world? Out there,
Where there is a bit of concrete and a patch of road?
This knowing, where you travel on the concrete and the road,
Signifying the shifting movement of desires,
Signifying the position of your pleasures?"

A: "You would have it as a board game, then?
It doesn't matter, we say, of what
You make the board, the color
Of the pieces — only the moves, the arrangement
Are all that counts
If you can play the game."

The world was an infinite system of numbers
Counting numbers inside numbers,
Numbers increasing and decreasing
In magnitudes countless in their velocity,
Precision, and scope...

But no one knows these numbers' pain
At being more than numbers
(More than, less than)
Equal to...
No one knows their pain
(Always uniquely theirs
And never it,
Never just an 'it'),
Except the mathematicians,
Hunched over their crowded chairs,
Who count and measure it out.