And still surprised by unconscious counting
when I swim the backstroke or find I miss him.
Numbers as benchmark, as dissolution. One
beige-walled house, two teetering children,
three swings of an axe to the tree-house.
Number as constraint, as smoke, as prophecy.
You could hear his ticking anger mount.
When he could no longer contain himself,
my father would croon with venom 1-2-3.
As if you could get your hands on time,
bag it, store it, lean on it, a drowning
child grabbing numbered buoys.
Not purposeful like an auditor or clock radio.
Counting as lullaby, as sedative. I counted
to fill silence, lulls, the white space on the day
he left. Planting numerals, seeds in my brain,
Time is everything, my father cautioned.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 28, Issue 3.
Linda Hillman Chayes is the author of two chapbooks: Not My First Walk on the Moon and The Lapse (both from Finishing Line Press). Her poems have appeared in Kestrel, SWWIM, Bracken, American Poetry Journal, Quartet, Westchester Review, and others. She practices as a psychologist/psychoanalyst and is an assistant editor at Bracken Magazine.
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