Fiscal Policy
Grandma’s cat sat on the shelf
above the bread and biscuit tin,
black and sleek and hollow.
On my birthday Gran would pour
its innards on the kitchen table.
I’d count copper coins into tens,
make up bags of pounds to keep.
Granddad would tisk and tut
telling me to wash behind my ears
where he could plant spuds
and invariably found a dug-up coin.
I’d check each night to see
if others lurked behind that flap
but only Granddad found them.
That’s how I thought of income,
not wondering how Gran saved
what nuggets she could spare
or Granddad’s misdirection;
believing he could conjure coins
but what he found was nothing extra
merely moved from hand to hand.
Sue Spiers has a self-published collection called Jiggle Sac available from Amazon* and is the delighted winner of Hysteria 4’s poetry competition. If you Twitter try @spiropoetry