Equivalents

Concerning equivalents:
            lost amid
the Roman catacombs, a priest will halve
his candle flame
         until one glow doubles
and redoubles on the tongues of terra-
cotta pots—
       a lesson the split earthworm

learns, as he stands twice the chance of being
split again:
       a wise move to reproduce
for two worms slither twice as far as one,
which explains
        why warheads unlock themselves
above a cityscape, thus brokering

a wider
     higher bloom—
              their sanguine hues

and party stars spread throughout the ether.
Are fewer survivors
          what this division
equals? How does such backward algebra

apply to the holy
          whose wafers, cracked
in eighths, constitute a body, though whole

ones add up to crackers? Furthermore, how
am I standing here,
            by-product of bi-
furcating cells, each one teased in two till
too many pulls
         spelled embryo, and one
final tug divided me from other