Notes To My Nieces (or, Essays In Fortune-telling )

when i was younger, trees
were green, money was green, money
grew on trees, or trees grew up
and became money. now, money is clearly
plastic, spreads like cancer, getting it
is genetic.

trust me on this. g o d stands
for good old days, and if you have enough
faith, you can remember them almost
like you were there, on your knees
with us, scrubbing them clean or
praying for the millennium, that next life,
when the g o d would be n e w : not
especially white.

question: your
mother is black and your father is loving.
answer: what's loving got to do
with virginia?

i fear
that your cows ain't like mine, that you
won't understand why i gave up
red meat.

say the past is a muddy
river. say the future is a belated alphabet
with which you and i might spell
different things. say the present
is something we can pass back and forth
between us, like an acorn, like
loose change.