Ghost, Zero, Suitcase, and the Moon

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

the ghost while the sadness nods his head. Math is just
replacing things with other things, says the moon.
Skull on a bottle equals poison, says the moon. We erase
birds from the sky in an attempt to solve for, we put
bodies in piles in an attempt to solve for, says the ghost.

People don't learn anything unless they are afraid of
being left behind, says the suitcase. I am afraid, says the
suitcase. Here and there and what to do about it. Leave
out the equal sign and the very idea of a place will end,
says the equal sign. Even when you are in rocketships.

Black ice in moonlight. A spiritual algebra. Zero zero
zero roses. And I am not the moon, says the moon.
I am your own big stupid head just trying to talk to you.
A hole in the sky and we call it the moon. You are bound
to have many questions now. Try to formulate them.