Michael J. Kolb

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A Numbers Game

They handed me charts,
a score I could not study for.

The doctor said,
You’re lucky. Ten.

Ten meant sick,
but not enough.

Ten meant wait.

Ten meant go home
and get worse
carefully.

Each visit,
the number moved like weather,

a front
I could not read.

Eleven.
Thirteen.
Back to ten again.

I learned to want
a higher score,

to hope my own decline
would clear some threshold,

knowing the threshold
meant someone else’s door

closing
so that mine
could open.

Michael J. Kolb is a poet, educator, and archaeologist based in Colorado.  He writes across disciplines, exploring nature, memory, and illness, asking what we carry and what we leave behind. His collection What Keeps Me Looking Out the Window was a finalist for the 2026 Press 53 Award. His poems have appeared in The Shore, Third Wednesday, ONE ART, Sky Island Journal, Eunoia Review, San Antonio Review,  Trampoline, The Ekphrastic Review, and elsewhere. He lives with his family and dogs where the mountains, shoreline, and changing weather continually shape his sense of place. 

Find him on Instagram at @michaeljkolb and on Substack at substack.com/@michaeljkolb.