Once, many years ago when money was tight, you found a five dollar bill in the street. Back then five dollars was a boon, an unexpected gift from a mysterious universe.
Yesterday, I found a grimy, rain-soaked twenty on the same block. Money’s not so tight these days. You? You are long gone.
What does this all mean? Oh, the question I often ask with no hope of a Definite Answer. Maybe it means nothing at all. A careless hand, a hole in a pocket.
Or maybe it’s a message from money. Maybe money has a sense of humor. Maybe money is trying to let us in on the joke by juxtaposing these two incidents, cash in the street, years apart, needed, not needed.
What, you might well ask, what is the punchline? Only money knows. And so far, it’s not telling.
Puff Of Smoke Poems 