Who's Counting?

poetry

Photo by Emma Richter on Unsplash

Who’s Counting?

The couple in 307 are wondering
if they can still count on each other
to undo the numbness that comes 
with the road.  

The man in 303 is counting his blessings. 
Tomorrow, he will finally meet the gal 
from the app who promises to unfold
her long legs and give him the key
to crypto billions.  The man in 302 
is counting his curses. He met that 
gal yesterday, only it was gold she
was pushing from her ankles to her
cleavage. They’re both up to 2025.

304, 305, 306.
It’s a bevy of Marx Brothers
knocking on every door
in search of their lost one
who died at birth only to 
grow up to be an accountant
and the main suspect in the 
theft of Harpo’s voice.

A sheep answers.
Could you please count softer?
We’re trying to get some sleep.
Tomorrow we’re starting 
a revolution though not for 
freedom. We’ve had enough
of that.  Our shepherd has run 
off and we want him back.

In 307 the woman says she
doesn’t remember this place 
as so seedy.  oh baby it’s just
then it didn’t matter.  why
do you give me fives
when it’s all fours I want?
don’t you remember when
every number I conjured
was the one you wanted?

Just then Security herds 
the sheep out of the hallway
but it’s more than he bargained 
for as they follow him home 
and camp on his lawn at 35 
Wolf Clothes Street, where 
plastic pink flamingos dream
of anything but being homo 
sapiens, nearby cars pick up 
steam and sheep can’t sleep
so they start counting humans.

Meanwhile, the shepherd’s getting 
fleeced by the accountant who’s 
counting his money backwards.
But he’s so happy to be free
it doesn’t matter.  Just then 
four Marx men move in, turning
his loot upside down, Zeppo
finds his lighter, Groucho his 
false teeth with his cigar stuck
in them.  They search the floor
for Harpo’s voice but only find
missing contacts, a book on
teaching the blind to drive
and Cyclops’ dream of
seeing things clearly. Groucho
tries to put a lens in Harpo’s eyes,
but he opens his mouth,
takes it on the tongue
spits it out, when a shiny harp
appears beneath Superman’s 
cape and the Bat phone
with the inscription
“Love, Daniel.”  Harpo
finally finds his shabda
bat tol expression in his
fingers.  He counts 1, 2,
3, 4 and plucks the air 
out of the strings, all float up
cartoon holes in celestial ceilings.

The children leap 
on a New York street
to the sound of a zither
resonating sweet and deep 
without the aid of human 
hands or the breath of Zephyr 
where Marx Men dogpaddle 
the air, their feet kicking hard
to suspend habeas corpus.
And the only thing that counts 
is the hint of something more 
playing now you see
now you don’t
so high above.