Poems with Mary Lee: The Rubik Cube

Mary Lee has been posting some nifty images and media files over A Year of Reading, and asking us to write poems inspired by the work. It is part of her push to share more about Wikimedia Commons. Yesterday, she posted this animated image:

By Silver Spoon (Own work) via Wikimedia Commons
It reminded me of a conversation I inadvertently eavesdropped on the other day between a boy and his father. Which led to this poem:

“It only takes 20 moves,”
the boy whispered, as his father stared
at the young fingers
quickly swiveling and twisting the color tiles,
remixing the cube back towards its original and perfect state,
“and I can do it in less,” the boy boasted,
barely looking at his hands in movement,
matching up colors in a blur of speed
and confidence.

Instead, the boy gazed intently at his father,
seeking a compliment, or comment,
or an acknowledgement at the very least,
but all he got was that dead-eyed look of an adult
suddenly realizing just how difficult it would be
to put his own fractured world back together in just
20 moves or less.

Peace (in the cube),
Kevin