Bell Curve Poem by Daithi Harris

Bell Curve

Johannes Gauss' bell curve,
clean, smooth, symmetric.
Statistical truth.
Today it rules my life.

I am a data point,
along with all my fellow data points,
confined but unaware,
inhabitants of space beneath our curve.

Wandering freely in our midst
death, wielder of the scythe,
at random harvests one of us.
A data point becomes a name.

We know how many will be called each day.
We cannot know just who the called will be.
‘Unknown' is twined within the ‘known'.
Mystery alloyed with certainty.