The Royal Gate by Marie Ponsot

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.