I never was a numbers man; they lost me back
in grade school, while I spent my time looking
out the window, wishing, hoping for something,
anything beyond, plus this, minus that, numbers
progressing across the board, the fractions and
decimal points, times this, divided by that, as I sat
daydreaming, daydreaming about what I could be,
would be outside the space allotted for learning
this hide and seek, the sleight of hand of numbers,
but now, all these years later, while daydreaming
remains, has become a necessity, the numbers have
come into their own, have become the measure of
my world: my age, my weight, my blood pressure
progress at alarming rates, and now public concerns
play out in numbers that are hard to understand, the stock
market pogoes up and down, gets its own sub-screen
on the news, while scientists call out projected death
tolls, a hundred thousand, two hundred, like auctioneers
standing in front of charts/graphs giving a visual proof
of what the numbers can do – finally telling us we’re not
in grade school anymore.