tuesday morning mishap in poetry

Spill coffee on your wallet.
Spread your whole life out to dry.
Consider all the ways you do and do not count.
Bleach your paltry money in the sun.
Read the tea leaves of your past in photographs and movie passes.
Lay your ID and your charge cards on the table.
Realize that to some,
this is all you are.

Your dreams cannot be wallet-sized.
Your memories can’t fit in a pocket.
Your hopes are larger than your britches.
Your lost loves would not fit on any bill.
Your heart is too big for your chest,
let alone a billfold,
let alone a credit score,
let alone a quick and neat accounting
in someone’s excel spreadsheet.

Spill coffee on your wallet.
See all the things you are and you are not.
Know all the things within your life
that could never be counted out in dollars.
Those are the things that you actually are.
Everything not there in your wallet
that is who you can be
if you try
while you let the earthly dry.