Backwards

I count the clock backwards.
Time is a cruel mathematician.
Time math is difficult.
Especially for those 
with time blindness 
And for those whom
continuity of attention 
is — 

I scribble on receipts 
I tally in margins
I render chalk dust airborne 
as I tap away 
at a wall-mounted board
Calculating
Ruminating 
Estimating.

I fake my way through 
a doctorate in culinary arts
Sweating the small stuff 
Preparing for my current, 
near future and distal states
What flours will I need and when?
Where will I need to be at three A.M.?
Can I start this recipe at five,
And still put in a solid day at the office?
I mean I have to, 
so the give comes at the edges, 
at the periphery of sleep and sanity.

Or will my starter collapse
In the interim 
while I’m across town
advocating for transformation 
at work.

Change rapidly exerts herself
upon my colonies, 
my organism housemates, 
all vying for my attention 
and feeding hand.

Anticipating the rise and fall
Of a civilization of found 
and much coddled yeast
Has proven to involve 
much mental gymnastics 
and a feigned multimodal skills.

To intuit elapsed time
Prepare for chess moves 
thirteen hours in the future
— Or is it nine? —

And do bowl math 
And spatula math
And oven proofing 
versus counter time math
And divining how much starter 
I’ll want bubbly on Friday
but wish staid and sated 
through mid-week?

And then there’s flour math
How many bags 
of starches and grains
will I need to accomplish
miso nori baguettes on Sunday
pancakes on Monday
popovers on Tuesday
and maybe pie crust 
or pizza on Wednesday
but then encourage
into dormancy by Thursday?

How many
overnight delivery orders
Of ivory teff and sorghum
tapioca and superfine rice
mason jar bonnets
— wee linen shower caps 
for glass vessels — 
fancy flour storage containers
countertop food scales
and lab grade weigh boats 
in 225mL and 25ml variants
will I tap into my big box cart
and check out 
in desperation
on my small blue-lit screen
lying in bed 
as my partner 
attempts slumber?

Like the answer to:
How many licks
Does it take
To get to the center
Of a Tootsie Pop?
The world, 
at the very least certainly I,
may never know.

“Don’t let it push you around,” 
he advises.
“Them,” 
I reply, in automatic correction, 
my vexation creeping 
around the snarly edges 
of my em-phas-is.

And that may be the tell.
It’s too late, I suspect. 

Pluribus;
I am Them.
We are We.
Inextricably linked
through my 
rediscovered
reinvented 
obligatory relationship.
I feed them;
They feed me
I do time math;
They do oven aeronautics
It’s a circle.
Of life and death.
Of rise and fall.

I lament 
— as I slide my lame 
(((((say this in a French accent)))))) 
over the taut marshmallow surface 
of a proofed country banneton — 
that I’d not learned more about
baker’s math in school
than I did about 
the quadratic equation.

Because contortions 
of hours and minutes 
and temperatures 
and resting and rising 
and preheating 
have me in a tizzy.

And I’m counting backwards
unraveling the 
marching strands of time
In search of the perfect proof
the spry sponge 
the golden crust
and the finish line.
We are tired.