Are they smiling?

By Zachary Brett Charles

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 two-thousand

dollars 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 smile

because in none of the portraits

of the slave owners on the bills

are they smiling. 

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Zachary Brett Charles is a young, bisexual person currently living in Seattle, Washington with his partner and their cat, Frankie. He loves writing poetry, short stories, and small comic strips for his Dungeons and Dragons games as well as painting, drawing, and being outside. He worries constantly about the effect of Western capitalism on individuals, humanity as a whole, and the environment. He studied Spanish at Elon University and proudly turned down awards with Greek letters for academic achievement. Follow them on twitter @brettspoems.