a pocket can sometimes be
a kind of prison,
I have never lived in
a cash economy where the bill
fold unfolds to find someone
creased in the middle,
but perhaps credit moves
the same, the way it scores
the pocket and the body
boxed and bureaued
the edge of a card
cuts anything akin to skin
a Dollar, a Euro, a World
Bank, a debt to erase, a wait
a race, a weight.
From The Next Verse Poets Mixtape: Volume One (Central Square Press, 2016). Copyright © 2016 by Fred L. Joiner. Used with the permission of the poet.