The cost of doing business

lives on a billboard in my brain.

My father said it on the phone

seven times.

Seven.

The first boy I loved made

hoodies with three sevens

printed on the backs.

Everything he liked was an odd number:

Basketball, breakups, math.

Seven is nestled at the back of my neck

I wonder if it ever looks at the billboard.

Once in a crowded Italian train station

a couple passionately kissed

right next to the tracks.

There is a safety to even numbers,

one is lonely, two is kind, and three is crowded.

Kissing

A sacred act of two.

I don’t know what number sex is.

The train came and they left and

I felt embarrassed

What a busy place for such an intimate moment

Intimacy is twelve.

I’m not positive, but

I think twelve is my favorite number.

My dad is forty two but hasn’t been

in eleven years.

Eleven is birthday candles and pink Polaroid cameras and

an uncomfortable mini skirt.

Do you think some people are born as adults?

My dad has never been eleven years old.

The cost of doing business

bites down at twenty one.

Who is twenty one,

perpetually, persistently?

When my sister was twenty one she dated a comedian

Their relationship was funnier than he was.

My first boarding school roommate was fifteen

She was the most hilarious person

I’d ever met.

I think we enjoy jokes more

before we learn how to make them.

Laughter is fourteen.

To my father, I am thirteen:

uneven, sour candy, prime.

Thirteen lives in my head as well

It’s printed in the place of “stop”

on one of those flashing light signs

Right below the billboard.