Unlucky Number

by Brett Rutherford

Who would have thought
that the unluckiest digit
was the tiny number Two?

Pythagoras said One
was unity or god,
a thing impossible to break
into constituent parts,

whereas the dreaded
number Two spelled out
diversity and struggle,
disorder and strife,
the root of all evil.

The Romans,
respecting always
the wisest Greeks,
were in accord.

Hold up two fingers
or stop your count
of anything at Two,
was like an evil eye,
or spitting at heaven.

Romans began the year
with One, the month of Mars,
then shuddered, cold,
through all of Two,
the month of Pluto,
when every chill wind
seemed to issue from Hades.

On Day Two of Month Two,
the Manes, unquiet shades
of ancestors neither blessed
nor damned, the walkers
at the edge of Hades, blow

up on night winds to haunt
the Roman graveyards,
unearthing bone and urn,
knocking about the little
household gods on the hearth,
engendering migraines
and mis-shapen births.

Walk on that day,
two fingers up on left,
two fingers up on right,
avoiding monuments,
not saying the names
of the departed. Eat
sparingly and take no salt,

pass water in all four
directions, and fail not
to complete each sentence
once begun, lest you lose
your tongue altogether.

At sunset, chant, Dis Manibus,
Dis Manibus, and pray
that no unquiet ghost answers.

Until the next day's dawning,
sleep not as two
entwined with wife or lover:

On the night of the Manes
each one must sleep alone
just as the dead ashes sleep
in their gloomy vaults below.