Million Dead

How should I begin? I find myself residing
at the dried out end of a dead history.
All my thoughts are dirt scattered on a coffin,
and I a dilettante funereal spectator here.
How should I presume?
A besuited bourgeois mourner, virgin to surrender and vivid sense.
I scour lichened stones,
desperately seeking Daedalus's paternal secret of where we will land.
Well I was born with four fingers on each hand,
and with my eight fingers and my thumbs I do maths.
Once again, how should I begin?
I've started weak and I'm stuttering, But I have remembered all my lines.
It seems that I have thus presumed to talk of maths in front of crowded rooms,
but I'll make the two times table mine.
How should I begin? I find myself residing
at the dried out end of a dead history.
How should I presume?
A besuited bourgeois mourner, virgin to surrender and vivid sense,
where I land.
Calculus finishes me, I don't follow trigonometry,
I've got nothing to add to algebra
(the more complex functions I don't remember).
But arithmetic…
The absolute zero is arithmetic on fingers and toes.
I have remembered all my lines,
and I'll make the two times table mine.
I will not presume, but I will thus begin.