Math Anxiety   Okay, you’ve got a new reason: you’re wired that way, it’s neurological, it’s not your fault — those synapses, they just don’t fire, they just sit there and gape. Fair enough. That’s got a certain diagnostic plausibility. You can be Beatrice Lubisi. It’s thirty years ago. You’re just a first-form girl with corn-row hair, your girl-breasts barely fill the bib of your pinafore. But your English is good, your family’s proud — their first to read, to write, to cipher! Let us sing the new Africa! Your mother who nursed you, your father who fed you! The umlumbi ghost, as pale as milk, he does not frighten you, you sit up close, your eyes shine brightly as you stab the air: Sir! The classroom has seventy-seven square meters, sir! That’s right, says the ghost, smiling, but the boys are not smiling, and in the back, the girls whisper: Again it is her. You long to join them in the village tonight, braid their hair and talk of boys, sing their songs. You can do it, Beatrice. Sit in the back and unschool yourself. Stop thinking, stop stabbing the air.     © Michael Fleming Brattleboro, Vermont April 2012