Seven, up North, (5/25)

Seven, up North,
is a big family
Eight, if you count the dreamed up border collie
that sleeps in bed with me and never sheds
elicits not even a whisper of a sneeze from my mother
The corners
of my lips are veterans at curling
upwards in bashful, proud apology
at somebody's surprise,
     "Seven!
     Oh, I couldn't imagine seven."
What of seven, though?
Why not seventy
or twenty-five million
or zero?
In the mountains,
numbers are tricks of the mind,
the shapes that remain after
leaves have launched their tender bodies to the ground
and are stepped on by people who don't pay enough mind
Family is everywhere to be found
and not nearly often enough discovered
but when stumbled upon
there is bashful, proud apology
in knowing that family
is as much the fallen leaf
as it is the trees

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