Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

A New Kind of Zoo

Algebra's a wondrous zoo that's filled
(To some degree) with fearsome animals,
And only operators wise and skilled
Can guard its radically eccentric halls.

The complex numbers make a fearful mess;
With angry snarls they tear and rip and rend,
And then they sigh, alas, for this distress:
They only have imaginary friends.

Exponential giraffes, from lofty heights
Look down on every product, every sum,
And every number (oh, pathetic sight!),
That lives in dreadful arithmetic slums.

Limitless in bravery and nerve,
Like snakes that slither on toward lines and rays,
The asymptotes and hyperbolic curves
Attempt to find escape roots in the clay.

While f(x), the lion of the grounds,
Snarls and shakes his fine Cartesian mane;
And hopes to range beyond his cruel bounds,
To rise and run beyond his small domain.

And if these cruel beasts are never tamed,
Then soon will come that dreadful Final hour
When students hang their heads in mortal shame,
And by innumeracy they are devoured.

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