Seven

[just mercedes]

 
 
Lucky for some. Seven days of the week,
brides for brothers. Seven eleven,
store chain named for opening hours.
 
A prime number; can’t be divided evenly.
If I were a cat I’d live with safety in mind,
at life number seven.
 
Seven seas, to sail on. Seven deadly sins.
Do I know them? Greed, sloth, envy, pride,
lust, gluttony – how is that different from greed?
Is boredom a sin? Maybe I’ll do better at seas –
Atlantic, Pacific, North, Arctic, Red, Dead, Black –
but I don’t know if oceans count.
 
Seven holes in the head; two eyes, two nostrils,
two ears, one mouth. Seven days of creation.
And rest on the seventh. Seven days the Jewish
sit in mourning; shiva is their number seven.
 
Seven virtues, seven vices – nice balance there.
Seventy times seven, we are told to forgive sins.
Seven objects in the sky – sun and moon, Earth,
Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. Pluto is no longer
a planet, had its seven days of celebrity.
 
On a dice, the numbers on the opposite faces
always add to seven. Maybe that’s why gamblers
see it as a lucky number. My nephew bought a set
of dice so we could play Yahtzee when they visited
and it rained so we couldn’t ski. No-one else noticed
that the numbers were wrongly set out on the dice,
but he did. They don’t add up to seven, he said,
and wouldn’t play with them. Would the toss
be wrong, the luck be gone, with numbers
in the wrong places?