Face Worth
Solely the useless have seen the tip of struggle.
– George Santayana (possibly)
I accumulate chilly, useless presidents in a pink woven basket, their flattened faces
embossed onto cash. I’ve presidents product of paper too however burn by way of
them quick—so quick in today, it’s not the gradual motion of change
passing stranger to stranger, dreamer to dreamer. Every coin, a little bit of promise,
an American story. I like when my presidents appear as if a glimmer of hope
on the road. I like discovering a Lincoln, brightest of brights, to be tossed right into a
fountain to want my fears away. I like my presidents greatest when pressed into service
of wishing wells and gumballs, nonetheless want a George from time to time, if not a lot,
now the meters downtown take a card. I like the way in which George operated, a frontrunner
not too proud to stroll behind Adams within the first demonstration of a switch
of energy. Every part, precedent, till it wasn’t. A lot stays unprecedented.
Till it doesn’t, it’s the legislation that solely the useless shall be coined. The reasoning,
self-evident. We now have no kings, no Blessed Leaders. A determine have to be historic
to be coined by the U.S. Mint, although beliefs haven’t stopped the garish from
minting themselves. In remembrance, I shake our actual change from time to time,
watch our presidents shift onerous to the left and the fitting, like a small demonstration
of plate tectonics. I let my useless presidents pile up till they develop heavy, beg to
be taken to the coin machine on the dangerous Safeway up the road. I like taking on
a handful to serve to the machine—my fee-fi-fo-fum, come, scent the pores and skin oil,
the metallic, come hear the onomatopoetic, the ringing of our metallic because it slides.
A Michigan native, Jessica Cohn has made properties in Illinois, New York, and most lately, California, the place she began a poetry apply. Gratitude Diary: Poems (Essential Road Rag, 2024) is the debut assortment from this long-time nonfiction author. For extra, please see jessicacohn.internet.
Header photograph by Milly, courtesy Pixabay.
