Number Blues

In the card shows a number
If only not my days were—
I’m a number

For the job I do
For my cloth and shoe
A number in the queue

A queue in the hospital
The life it is on an angle
The numbers in living are only so dull

Agonising, between the numbers
The line blurs
But ever the serial number appears

From day one to the last
The number trolls fast
And up to death, to ember, it will be a blast.

The numbers are counted in the death
The number of year’s the shibboleth.

We are called with a number
What we are, we call it a number.