Are they smiling?

banks were invented as a place or shared mental

space to store wealth we cannot use well I could

use it right about now most people could though

or at least most of it

is in the banks so most people can’t

touch it or eat it or

smoke it if you got it

during the pandemic that twothousanddollars that one

time rent was due to eat that before you could turn on

the gas ate it raw like ground turkey

the texture between material and immaterial

a transitory state

a place the bank occupies

in my head I have little value

for the many ways I cannot

keep the unhoused warm full

and housed though they held

a sign yesterday telling me

anything helps

even a smile I gave

a dollar and a smiling few words

because in none of the portraits

of the slave owners on the bills

are they smiling