Withholding
driving into a bank’s covered parking
money’s promised numbers keep
a fleeting numerical relationship
Where’s Rebecca of New York’s 1921?
saved in a Paul Strand photo in this morning’s New Yorker
deep in numerical sadness
her bony features youth-fleshed
her long stare past us from far behind
her numbers having fled, still fleeing
she sees her long-ago mistaking
a low world-wide withholding
for its crisp green promises of saving
over glass-like distance her nearness stabs
her grief, her misfortune fund these our prodigal withdrawals
(see The New Yorker)
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