Michael T. Lawson

poetry

Michael T. Lawson studied poetry and biostatistics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, earning a PhD in the latter and fostering a love of the former. His work has been published in Tar River Poetry, Ninth Letter, Nimrod International Journal, and Four Way Review, among others. His manuscript, Proof, was named a finalist in the 2025 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize. He currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts, where he works as a data scientist. To learn more, visit https://michael-t-lawson.com/.

 

Because You Asked How I Could Stand Math

Do you remember the first time you ate a grape? Not those waxy green rugby balls at the supermarket, a grape. Fresh plucked off the vine, dying summer drenching its skin. You bit down expecting sweetness and the sour shivered through you. Like clacking your molars on a thunderbolt. You knew—not everything, no, just this one thing a little better: the way a grape tastes. The way it shimmers. The hornet-sting of tartness, the newness, the revelation. So little you understood. So little you still understand. An inkling. Just more than nothing. Enough for you to pluck a second.

“ Sometimes a grape changes your life. The genesis of this poem was the first farm-fresh grape I ever ate. I left the rest of the bunch in the strainer, walked to my computer, and wrote a first draft of this poem before the taste had left my mouth. To me, this poem is also a reminder of how rewarding the process of revision is—through the years and drafts, the core concept of this poem has remained remarkably intact, aging like . . . well, like some sort of beverage. ”

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