The Royal Gate
Little Jacqueline Pascal played with Blaise
re-inventing Euclid (Papa told them to).
While he made up conic sections, she wrote plays
& got papa out of jail when Richelieu
liked her long impromptu poem in his praise.
I haven’t read her verse. Its not in print.
Blaise invented: the wristwatch, a kind
of computer, fluid mechanics, the hint
for digital caiques, probabilities,
the syringe, space as vacuum, the claims of lay
theologians. He thought (he thought) at his ease.
In her convent Jacqueline kept the rules.
On or under every desert there are pools.
