I owe nine hundred ninety-six dollars and ten cents
to a bank somewhere in the hills of Upstate New York.

There in a concrete bunker men collect ballpoint pens,
dribble coffee on their wrinkled ties, lick their palms

slick their hair and punch my number into a database
where a machine speaks my name into a receiver

and plays a smooth jazz song -- a genre manufactured
to hypnotize the listener into eternal apprehension.

Last night for the first time, I thumbed the soft cove
behind the empty piercings of your earlobe.

We're loaned out little moments (your breath in my mouth)
and charged interest (for the spit on my lip.)

I always ask too much -- more than I could ever give back.
Every good day marked with its cost.

I want to know how your body fits against mine.
If anything could ever feel completely whole --

more than just a fraction of some old god's fortune
I've borrowed one too many times.

One day maybe he will come back to claim it.
Until then let's learn to be frugal.

A mason jar filled with spare pocket change
also collects lint and hair and small skin particles

of friends and strangers. Let's learn how to love
within the means of these small bone cages.

Save solitary drops of sweat and stray eyelashes,
the dried specks of mascara and summer freckles

collected on cheeks. So when the time comes
we can pay back this long line of gray men in suits

who clutch fat folders of financial records to their chests
to keep them from spilling open.