He was five. Tilting the broken piece of glass
just so, he caught the light of the sun
Like the most adept of mathematicians
(as we would later know him to be).
He honed it, empowered it,
Focused it on the small insects before him;
they shriveled, peeled,
Blazing on the hot sands of Alexandria,
An ashen pile of ants, subjects and witnesses
To geometrical genesis
On the hot sands of Alexandria.