Arlene Corwin writes

No Connection With Numbers

I have no connection with numbers.

Sixty-five or fifty-five, seventy, and suddenly

A person’s dead

And I am swayed

To thinking, “Gee, she was too young to pass,

At least these days.”

Lost track of what should, should not be,

It being all the same to me.

As teen, numbers relevant,

Forty ancient,

Frames of reference clear and few.

Digits now,

Are passcodes, pin codes, bank-cards, passcards.

As for age: eighty’s the new forty, forty's twenty;

Size eighteen is now size fourteen, thirteen now size zero;

Uni- multi- verses more and many; numbers leer,

And so unclear

That only new words suit.

Still unconnected and to boot,

It doesn’t matter – not to me, in any case.

I’m free, unfettered by the race, the chase.

In fact, it is a grace I [almost] note.

Glad I can vote,

De-vote my time to stumbling through

Without connecting numbers to

A thing

(except perhaps those few

I mentioned.)

Poems start out with one intention,

End up, well,

A tolling bell,

Telling all and nothing,

Ring! Ring! 

 

 0 through 9 -- Jasper Johns