By Kate ErtmanN

Balazs Busznyak, *Untitled,* digital photograph, 2025. Courtesy of Unsplash.

A Biting Swell

Kate Ertmann | APR 2026 | Issue 51

Ready to swallow once past its teeth,
a tussle between energy and frequency, so strange.
It’s never the same underneath.

The laze transparency stretched as if a barren heath,
not yet can the vibrations expand, breathe amplitude, unlock change.
Ready to swallow once past its teeth.

Swirling tide, its arms-open-shape pulled into a hug of a wreath.
An arc gathering momentum, from a belly deep trough to full range.
It’s never the same underneath.

Void of isolation, a grouping of sines from beneath.
A differential function bordering on derange,
ready to swallow once passed its teeth.

Interlocking rhythms encased in a sheath
along the spine, to be sorted, churned, and pushed up in an interval exchange.
It’s never the same underneath.

A grand gesture of such magnitude, willed to bequeath
a revelation — finally! — that wave that had to self-arrange.
Ready to swallow once past its teeth.
It’s never the same underneath.

Kate Ertmann is a writer who uses math concepts to understand human & societal behaviors, expressing her findings through prose and poetry. As an essayist, she became the first self-taught mathematician to serve on an MAA (Mathematical Association of America) board, curating other artists’ personal stories that express how math has appeared unexpectedly, yet instinctually, in their lives. Kate’s work has gained international recognition on BBC Radio4's Sideways and on stage at SXSW-Sydney. Recent commissions include pieces for DAME Magazine that highlight the mathematical patterns in today’s politics, and for Oregon Humanities that connect the math of the ocean to sustainable community engagement.