I remember when the fat sink of a nickel
Would flush out the
gum
from an hourglass machine.
The plunk and the scrawl of some guy’s face in silver,
and blue falls into the hand.
Taste copper, bronze
whatever that blue flavor is, was.
I remember, I remember, the jingle of her pocketbook.
The hope of earning a prize.
I remember checking the backsides of pennies,
for their parenthetical laurels of wheat.
Whatever grain was, hybridized, isn’t.
Freedom! Possibility
Sweet fruitiness,
and all of it!
Gluten free.
O I remember rare days my mom would give me a coin!
My jaw dropped, then chewed and chewed till it ached.
A fat one, a squared, cinnamon, sugar-filled!
Were we once, little girls,
rich recipients
of time stood
in our
hourglass!
Come
Forth
Put our
Hand up,
Spun the
lever
Men in
profile, turned.
SARA BARNETT is a published poet and actor currently readable in 2024’s Canada’s Jonah Magazine and America’s issues of The Fib Review, Reapparation Journal, The Inquisitive Eater, and forthcoming to Slipstream Magazine (summer 2025). She shares The Seattle Star’s positive hope of a wider and more generous world from the other coast of the country.
