The Ides of March

My Fingers Get in the Way (So Why Do I Keep Counting?)

I used to believe that three was the
lucky number, until things
continued and years added up.
Now I don’t remember
what number I worship
when thinking back on the times
I spent talking to ghosts in corners
and apparitions on stairwells.
And now they are just air,
so many years later,
years I can’t count on five fingers.
Years I can’t remember
in chronological order,
or in real-time,
or at all.
Years that make you seem
like a distant, far, and sweet thing
I remember on the nights
when counting is hardest.
But I tend to recall, somewhere
after adding, that sweetness
turns to sour, wrinkled things
over time and distance, and
the alcoholic content sometimes
rises past peek, so things turn rancid.
And beautiful things become covered
with the dust of all these years,
unable to fit on five fingers;
and beautiful people are nothing
but words hanging along the shadows,
ghosts and apparitions, memories from
three years before, and beyond the span
of my memory’s recollection.
My hands cringe at the thought
of all those years adding up,
weighing down my little fingers,
which struggle to keep time.

March 15, 2008
Beware the Thirty-Three Stab Wounds to Your Back