Secret Vespers

I hear that one hundred thousand people pass through my metro stop every day. I stayed up last night trying to count that high. I counted for five hours and I only reached thirty-six thousand. I fell asleep as the sun was rising. I saw the dawn’s first joggers.

I used to sleep with a runner. She would count her steps jogging, walking, jumping. At ten thousand she would buy new sneakers.

There is always a higher number. Say you are on an escalator, pressed so close to strangers you have to escape, so you imagine you are elsewhere. You are in a memory. Maybe it’s the last time you kissed. You are standing so close to these strangers you could rub noses. But how do you measure the real distance, the distance between your imaginations? You are outside a bar with a friend you had never thought you would hold that way. The man ahead, in the spreadsheet of his mind, is repeating a calculation that proves he must sell his home.

How many times will your heart beat? If I slide my fingers into your hair, how many strands will land on my palm?

I want us to escape and hide from unmanageable numbers. I want the rooftops at night, the streets at five in the morning, a wide open space in a museum where the exhibit is space itself. I want to count things that matter, things like the shivers before a kiss. I want to live inside what we can count to in a night.