Counting Descent

After Alan Michael Parker

My grandfather is a quarter century
older than his right to vote & two
decades younger than the President
who signed the paper that made it so

He married my grandmother when they
Were four years younger than I am now
& were twice as sure about each other
than I’ve ever been about most things.

They had six children separated by nine
years, three cities & one Mason Dixon
line; there were twice as many boys as girls
but half as many bedrooms as children

which most days didn’t matter because poor
ain’t poor unless you name it so & kids
prefer playing to counting so there was never
much time to wallow in anything but laughter.

My mother was the third youngest or the
third oldest depending on who you ask. She
was born on a federal holiday which my
grandmother was thankful for, said the Good

Lord only got one day off when he built
the world, so one day is all she needed too.
Mom says Dad was persistent, wouldn’t give up
when he asked if he could take her down the

street to get some coffee which back then cost
two dollars less than it is now. Now my
mom is trying to stop drinking coffee but still
loves my dad, they’ve been married for thirty-

one years & have three kids who are six
years & 3,551 miles apart. My birth
took twelve hours & forty-three minutes which
is probably because my head is five

times too big. My mom said that my
head was big because I needed enough
room to read all the books in the library
which seemed like infinity even though

I didn’t really know what infinity meant
but I had heard my teacher say it once
when she talked about the universe &
books felt like the universe to me. I was

pretty good at math too, until about fifth grade
when they started putting numbers & letters
together which didn’t make much sense.
My brother is seventy months younger

than me but is taller & knows more about
numbers so it doesn’t always feel like this is true.
My sister is twenty-four years of loyal
& eight years of best friend. I am the oldest

of three but maybe the most naive, I still believe
we can build this world into something new,
some place where I can live past twenty-five &
it’s not a cause for celebration because these days

I celebrate every breath, tried to start counting
them so I wouldn’t take each one for granted.
I wish I could give my breath to the boys who
had theirs taken but I’ve stopped counting

because it feels like there are too many
boys & not enough breath to go around.