The Memory of a Number

There is a number I’m trying to remember:
8 or pi; something binary or imaginary.

At the coffee shop I’m thinking:
“Two pounds French roast,
twenty five dollars and ninety cents.
How many beans?
What time is it?”

They don’t know the number,
never have,
don’t even know they don’t know it,
don’t understand when I ask.

She hands me a cup of coffee,
12 ounces, with room for three teaspoons
half-and-half.

It’s said humans can’t tell one crow from another,
but crows can distinguish each of us by face.

Eight billion, two hundred and three million
nine hundred and twenty one thousand
two hundred and ninety four
faces.

The number I’m trying to remember doesn’t
have wings or recognize faces.
It’s not a substance, a size,
an experience, a time or a distance.

The crow drinking from the fountain
recognizes the face of the man
in search of the number he can’t remember.

And I, like that undistinguished crow,
drink from the same unremarkable fountain.