Grandad said,
“No one should be
a money machine.”
“Greenbacks,”
he called money
or sometimes “Monopoly,”
when he discovered
an ATM
outside his bank
after slaving all night
since he was seven
and turned away
he was expiring
on the pavement
because thieves
broke into the bank,
“What’s the difference,
inside or out?”
he whispered,
“most people
live by default;
the bribe taking pols,
editorial writers,
monocled judge
and hung juries,”
even at
this neglected hour
fear on the street
on a bankrupted day,
now grandad you are gone
encircled by time
in rooted bitterness
of an uncollected
memory
with interest
now stored in my poems
and housed away
at the bottom drawer
of an auctioned desk
with no one to give
an account.