Big Ones

by Meghan Sterling

I’m dreaming of money and it’s awkward

because I want the feel of silk on sandblasted skin,

my flesh torrid with lotion, unblemished by work.

My horse sense tells me I’m worth at least twice what I’m paid,

If only my bosses would agree. My bosses are: memory, parents,

The dead, schoolteachers, the bully on the playground each year

A different blonde boy. Money could buy me something

That used to hurt where now I feel nothing—an icy puddle

a sky heavy with storms where my hands sought the sun.

Money could buy me the Golden Fleece to shield my loves

from my February heart, black snow in piles along

the sides of a highway. I want money to buy me a heart,

or at least someone to clean my house so I can write.

I’m thinking of money and how it feels to touch it,

although the money I really want is invisible, massive

numbers and lines of zeros that blink on computer screens,

that operate behind plastic cards and glass walls,

is the smell of a clean house, the smell of coming snow.