How to Count Your Souls

The saints have their ways.
The priests have their own.
If it’s tax or votes
You need to count, then
Heads on necks work well.

The gods don’t count. Stars
Don’t count at all. Souls
Try it all—prayers, breaths,
Hours, births, eyes, hearts, graves.
It’s hard to count souls.

Is an egg a soul?
Is a womb a shrine
For souls, and if so,
Whose shrine? Who keeps it?
Who sweeps the shrine’s floors?

What if there are two
Or more kinds of souls?
We would like to guess
There is at least one
Kind of soul not owned

In flesh or faith, soul
That threads lanes of dust
Through clouds ripped by stars,
Soul you can’t count, soul
Of change, yours as us.