Portside

O Best Beloved, they're true, those tales
    come down to us from Way
Then. In The Age of Money, the money
    vanished--overnight it did, as if
vacuumed through a funnel into deep space.
    No one had it, the money. It didn't stew
in a bank or go forth and multiply.
    Buried in the yard of the mad man, it was not,
not bent into wads and stuffed
    in the robber's pocket. It had not burned
had not melted; no guttering molecules slid
    back to earth, their nuclei hot and
circling the memory of money.
    O Best, it went Gone. It went Ain't. It went
as if it had not been, ever, as if our lives
    had been nothing but dreamt things
and we weren't even the primary dreamers.
    Beloved, now dream again. It's late.
Close your eyes and think of that enchanted time
    when money flowed from our palms like
blood through our veins. Then dream
    of The Age Before That, when we had only
to point and golden fruit dropped
    in our hands. And the most ancient
of all realms, imagine: The Era of Wands.
    We waved them and, Lo, it appeared--
whatever we longed for.
    And we never went hungry yet, somehow,
we always felt hunger, for there was always
    more where that came from, and always
we wanted more.

Suzanne Lummis' poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Ploughshares & The Hudson Review. Her latest collection is Open 24 Hours. She has edited various anthologies, including Stand Up Poetry and Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond. She is also the recipient of George Drury Smith Outstanding Achievement in Poetry.