You have eight, but eight’s not a number
to be counted. In terms of ferns
your body and your mind are one plant
and your eyes are always eyes: they open and close.

       In the morning, numbers are numbers
that can be counted, but this is not morning.
Your body and your mind are one number
but this fact is questionable, like your open eyes.

       Numbers are not plants and they are not eyes
which cannot be counted like bodies. Like ferns
your body’s mind is a grainy, grey number
and its version of sight is suspicious.

       Eight is eight ones or four twos
which can be counted. And plants and bodies
and numbers don’t reflect color, even grey.
Nadja, your eyes equal eight. They equal a number.

Knowing something’s been forgotten. Remembers a parrot
                                         Named Morgan.
The mirrors will have been cleaned,
Spotless, he’ll remember. His rented house should be left,

Cleared from window to window.
              In a dream, he repeats everything
From the bird’s beak. Hand-stitched quilts cover the mirrors,
       The windows with blue squares.

When he wakes soothed from his sweat,
                     He’ll walk in the new bathroom,
Sleep in Morgan’s cage.

The boy tells him community. There’s never
an easy answer. Who asks this kind of question?

I’ve never realized that, no. One
out of every four. Wouldn’t it be easier

if we all thought that way? Sometimes,
one doesn’t know what to tell one’s mother.

Whenever you’re young, that’s when you need
to see the world. Gender stereotypes: an apple a day.

Tell me again, why doesn’t God exist? This flower
requires water. An exercise in self-indulgence.

Where are we going? However many leave, there are more
to replace them. He likes non-fiction. How boring is that,

anyway, studying ants? Everyone
should learn to play an instrument, cook a meal,

dance. People of all ages. Is that couch
reupholstered? There’s a puzzle the color of the sky.