By PEDRO POITEVIN
Translated by PHILIP NIKOLAYEV
I am myself a member of myself
and every time I search within I find
another me, mysteriously aligned,
and in that replica wherein I delve
there dwells another, and another yet,
ellipsis dots: a mammoth nesting doll
that both contains itself, containing all,
and self-inhabits, the set of all sets.
I am the madness of the grand design,
I am the limit of where reason goes,
I am the science behind metascience.
The endless universe of sets is mine,
and this includes the cheeky set of those
denying my existence in defiance.
Pedro Poitevin, a bilingual poet, translator, and mathematician originally from Guatemala, is the author of six books of poetry. His work has appeared in Rattle, River Styx, The Mathematical Intelligencer, and Nimrod, among other publications. In 2022, he received the Juana Goergen Poetry Prize, and in 2025, the Premio Internacional de Literatura Palindrómica Rever.
Philip Nikolayev is a poet living in Boston, raised in Moldova. He translates poetry from French, Romanian, Ukrainian, Hindi, Urdu, and Sanskrit. His collections include Monkey Time and Letters from Aldenderry. His collection of poems in Spanish translation by Willy Ramírez and Pedro Poitevin, Un poeta desde el balcón, has been published in Latin America.
