Monstersinger

Pick a number, any number.

Tell you later what it stands for.

(Pay attention to that, stands for.

Lots of trickery in stands for.

We can hold whole worlds in stands for.)

Now ask what you would have to do,

Exactly how you’d have to live,

Just so you’d achieve that number.

Let’s say you chose the number two,

Then wondered why you picked that one,

What you’d have to do to be two.

Perhaps become more romantic.

Put some effort into dating.

Or you picked three for no reason

Except you like the number three,

And now you need to have a kid.

If you’re one of the odder types,

You might have plucked the ugliest,

Most random-seeming big number

That came to mind. Eight fifty-nine.

Five one zero seven thirteen.

Very nice. Now what, in your life,

Would have to happen for that count,

That exact count, to be your life?

You bait hooks with numbers. You cast

Out lines of numbers after them,

Hoping to catch something, hoping

To reel more hungry numbers in.

Every time you spot a number,

You’re forced to ask what it stands for—

Cash, trap, food, score? Numbers are terms.

Terms are words. That’s where monsters lurk.