Issue 1:
Toy
Janet I. Buck
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The Money Moon
I memorized your favorite toy--
a ragged mutt with stuffing
poking through its seams.
A Snoopy always napping
just outside the range of wealth,
where all the pretty people lived.
You worshiped only Yuletide trees
that seemed to ache and needed love.
The kind without a stereo
in ribboned paper at the base
or sycamores with tendons twisted,
growing sideways from the earth.
A tree house fashioned from a dream.
Your dog without a set of papers.
Just an orphan on the stage.
All at once too full of cash --
this saintly adoration died.
Inheriting a moon of money.
How it changed you, changed us all.
Up against the wall of greed.
The S & M of dollar signs
that stole the boy I loved beneath.
Now it's all Mercedes sports cars,
shirts in starch, and country clubs.
A mansion bigger than a castle.
Stock-trades, not a birthday card.
You pray to booze from five o'clock
until your tongue is etherized.
Children wander in your silence,
bounce on hope like rotted planks.
I hope it doesn't take a death
to caffeinate your modesty,
to bring you home to who you were,
a diamond in a septic tank.
~Janet I. Buck
Janet teaches writing and literature at the college level. Her poetry and essays have appeared in journals, anthologies, and e-zines world-wide. Email.
© 1999 by Janet I. Buck. All Rights Reserved.
© 2000-2002 by Cayuse Press. All Rights Reserved.
This page updated April 23, 2002.