Rounded on itself in abstraction, heavy with official sanction, honest as George Washington the virtuous slave owner whose image is on its front, the image of the Great Seal on its backside with the nation’s moto. A token of exchange that buys almost nothing today without a hefty bag of its fellows, it is itself a marker for twenty-five of its little copper cousins now mostly replaced in use by plastic. Flippant, it has other uses. In place of choice and so responsibility it offers the illusion of objectivity or even fate, between two alternatives. Offense or defense, candidate A or candidate X, steak or fish and chips. Fight or flight. Polished silver with raised images talking with fingers, its edge shows a modest tread like a seldom used tire. It is slight satisfaction in an otherwise empty pocket. From many one, from one many. Reading in reading out. Not to overthink. Never more than a hint, a glimpse, these objects. What we make of them they make of us. A fair exchange; but Unum?
The Dog Star 
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