Amanda Moore




Omne Trium Perfectum

Too alone we two: a duet, a tipping over 
on our duo of shaky legs—
we needed another

to make us solid, triangular 
like a milking stool, a trinity:
the many and infinite. Yes, 

we are an oddness
but also indivisible
more practical than magical

(airplane row, circus rings, 
pieces of suit), but 
what ordinary magic! We are

limit and goal, the start 
of something: 1…2…
3-legged race, a leap,

hands clasped, into the lake
and an arc—not a line—more fluid 
than flat, more graceful

than straight. We are
excess and overflow: 
the waltz, the polka; 

not binary or system, 
not symmetry,
not a table, square, a clout,

but something rare:
a curiosity. We are
braid, a weaving, a wisdom;

archetype and Biblical, a fairytale 
of tries or a coven 
sharing a single eye. 

We are danger, 
too, in nature: 
leaves of three. 

Primary: all colors
can be made 
from us, and all matter:

proton, neutron, 
the swinging 
electron: molecule

and elemental, two hydrogens
rounded by oxygen, nothing
into water. No way

other than three 
to have made this world, no way 
to sustain life without.