I tally the dead. I tally today’s dead. I seek a tally of the dead or seekyesterday’s dead. I try to count them, the dead. Reports tell me there are,today, more dead. I announce the dead—the house is quiet. I try tocount. I seek numbers. I provide numbers. I wake trying. I covermyself in numbers, trying to keep still. I seek some stillness beyond the dead—I try to just manage. I tally the dead,each pair of lungs, I wander through numbers, the daffodils neverthelessfly up. I hide the numbers, paper over what I know. The warm house fills. What are you doing, he says. I say prayers for, try to put faces to the deadas if to anchor the dead—I condemn the dead, their utter defenselessness. Again I try to spare no numbers, the ones who have died, not the onesabout to die, and when I wake they are there, counted and uncounted. When life takes more away, I keep the dead inside me, the ones notinjured but gone, although many are injured. My counting—what even matters? I don’t feel like going out. Soon I am counting. At the gate of the house I feel the faint dusk resolve. I bless the dead,I forget the dead from last year, I lose more dead, I tally what I can. I count through the morning. Light drifts across the thick rug. I movemy hands as if I am counting the dead. As if I am altering the deadin my hands as I count.