the word salad stares at me  
fearless photons fencing with my eyes:  
“the cockroach,
the blind dolphin,
General Custer,
theft by osmosis,
the death at the diner”
and other auspicious beginnings  
that pull me to the screen    
like daily lotto numbers    
I keep buying them, on credit, for pecking
and time are not real currencies  
and whatever silver or gold  
is there for the mining  
hides well behind boulders
placed there by eons
of parsimonious patience  
I will never have