Two Statisticians

Once it was just us two,
teasing truth from the numbers
in a room with twin desks
at the back of the building.
We practiced arcane science
while the morning sun glared
on our terminal screens,
and margin flowed like wine.

I was the neophyte
aglow with possibilities,
you the earnest teacher
with your irony tempering
unshakable self-regard.
But in time I transcended you
as I learned to talk Business
and made machines dance
and the sacred memos sing.

The years carried us on.
I prattled in the boardroom
and marched, well suited,
to do battle in the courts,
skirting perjury with the best
advice money could buy.
You carefully perfected
your optimizations
in a magnificent paradigm,
not seeing its pedestal
slowly, irresistably crushed
by the weight of the changing world.

When I walked, lost in thought,
from the front of the building tonight,
the air smelled like rain.
Now it would seem
there is only room for one.