Ghost, Zero, Suitcase, and the Moon Richard Siken

Contrast and likeness, the difference between
one bird and many. The similarity of one bird, one
worm, one stone. From finger-counting to sticks,
to symbols, to abstractions: magnitudes no longer
represented by pebbles. Numbers larger than ten

are no longer human: they fly from the hand into
the imaginary sky we call hypothesis. Take this
bird, for example: make it equal something. Get it on
one side of the sky. Solve means isolate. Solve means
conquer. The numbers suit up and take the field.

Was I discovered or invented? asks the zero. Feels like
I've always been here. I put a line around his border
but he still wasn't there. A hole in the world. A failure.
I turned away. You start counting at one, not zero,
which is wrong, says the moon. Thing or nothing,

where or nowhere. Measure yourself against the truth and
not the other way around, says the ghost. Man, moon,
ghost, zero--naming rounds off. Perfect and
completely dead. Your math is crazy, says the moon.
You can count to eight with the spaces between your

fingers, says the ghost. If you have one apples and
I take away one apples you have, zero apples and a sadness,
says the sadness. It's true, says eleven, putting on
his suit. Counting is boring even when it works, says
the square root of negative one. Subtraction is worse, says