Puzzle

Is today still my brother’s birthday
when he’s been dead a dozen years?

Is yesterday’s poem a record
of images I want to hold?

How about this? The bean counter
mechanical thing in this
platform I use to wander words
through the internet–
Yesterday it told me I had posted
poem number 1000. One thousand.
Why am I proud of accumulations
of words in mostly careless patterns?

And how about
that old fashioned term “bean counter”
that I have never said out loud but it
jumped out from a mouth that might have been
my grandmother’s–where does that piece come
from? Where do I put it–
in the trash bin or in a poem?

And where do I put the worst fact–
the long, rambling, happy walk that became
yesterday’s poem? It ended with you calling
as I unlocked my front door.
And when I heard you crying
I thought virus I thought death
and I was half right.

and I dragged myself to yesterday’s poem
anyway– out of habit, out of my depth
and it turned out to be number one thousand
a gnat to brush away with my thoughts on her
On her and the thoughts she sits with now.

And clearly this is a puzzle of many more
than 1000 pieces and the pieces are scattered
and we’ve lost the box that shows what
this picture is supposed to be