Something Real

As a child, I didn’t know it, but they had silver in the coins.
Then someone decided that the money didn’t have to be real.
That we could sustain, in our imaginations, the value.
A proposition still to be confirmed.

In time, I collected the old JFK Half Dollars and the
Quarters with George Washington and the
Dimes with Franklin D. Roosevelt — and they were real.
You could melt them…
And the value would ooze out,
Like the juice from an orange or a banana too-ripe-squeezed or
A peach when everything is perfect.

It is our Silver now.
From San Francisco to Orlando spans a continent.
Spans a quarter-century.

If you shook a magazine and the letters all fell out,
You could reorganize the letters,
And the value would still be there.
The message is inherent.

That is what silver is all about.

By JIM PREVOR