The moon is blind,
scarred by cataracts.
A milky-eye
rolling
in the cloud-spun sky.
Its dark eyelid
blinks futilely,
unable to see
the slow waltz
of the stars.

money from my hands like rain from clouds
copper suns and zinc moons and dead grass green presidents
pitter patter, flitter flutter
falling from the spaces between my good sense and my fingers
into cashboxes and registers.

and what are these heavenly satellites and stars spent on?
what are those famous dead men buying me?
tiny luxuries that vanish like morning dew
trivial things, unneeded and wasteful
a month’s supply spent in a day
by some lazy, jobless child
with little common sense and no self-control.

There is a red brick bridge I cross every day, if I can.
Over the river with its gravel shores, completely devoid of man.

Today as I was strolling by
a small something caught my eye.
I approached this thing with interest,
filled with the curiosity with which I’m blessed.

A turtle shell with rattling bones;
a lonely and abandoned home.
This was the prize that I had found,
resting forlornly on the ground.

A small, bleached white shell
on which my fingers tapped a death knell.
A quiet reminder of a life once had.
To be honest, it made me sad.

“Such is life,” it seemed to say.
So I continued on my way,
to live and laugh and cry and play.

But I thought of turtles the rest of the day.