Dedication to the Countess

It began with one, two, buckle my shoe.
Then the number of raindrops
it took to fill her grandmother's carafe
beneath the leaky bedroom ceiling.
Three, four, shut the door and the sum
of crows circling a six-point buck
dying in the neighbor's bean field.
Seventeen eyebrows tweezed
and two-hundred squares of toilet paper
conjoined at the perforations
like Siamese twins. Five, six, pick up sticks.
She counts the snowflakes
it would take to scarf her neck
and the steps to the attic
where her childhood memories
are stacked like wedding cake layers
with dust for frosting.
Seven, eight, lay them straight.
Twenty-nine dents in the kitchen linoleum
made during music when she learned to dance
in garage sale tap shoes.
She counts the self-help books
arranged alphabetically
and read by her mother in a light so dim
she wouldn't have sewn a seam by it.
Nine, ten, let's count it again.
Above, eleven moth skeletons
burned at the stake
in an overhead lighting fixture.
Counting things has become automatic
for her like breathing
and regular as the tap tap tap
of a metronome and the shifting of seasons.

Shelly Reed