Spry Currency, and: Tugged Blanket

19 Mark Taksa Spry Currency A lady sticks a card into a money machine, fills a wheelbarrow with oranges. The ring on her finger is thick enough to be safe only in a vault. She tells me that happiness in this harbor is available as jewelry she buys with fruit. The machine rejects my card, blinks a message: before justice swept the land like sappy leaves, I invited too many stuffed wallets to my yacht parties. I throw my dollars into the river. Tugged Blanket Twisting a hairpin, she complains that streets should have beds for the poor. Her son's socks are bandages. She fastens a smile to her jaw, explains how a stomach can be fooled by photos glued to a plate. I ask how she cooks with sun for heat, call the boy's future the blanket she tugs from his arms. The child tells the court that hunger cuts his stomach like a fork, that he would rather sleep in snow than in his mother's arms. His tongue dissolves. He reads the papers every day, waiting for his story. ...