Face Value
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
– George Santayana (maybe)
I collect cold, dead presidents in a red woven basket, their flattened faces
embossed onto coins. I have presidents made of paper too but burn through
them fast—so fast in these days, it’s not the slow movement of change
passing stranger to stranger, dreamer to dreamer. Each coin, a bit of promise,
an American story. I like when my presidents appear like a glimmer of hope
on the street. I like finding a Lincoln, brightest of brights, to be tossed into a
fountain to wish my fears away. I like my presidents best when pressed into service
of wishing wells and gumballs, still need a George on occasion, if not so much,
now the meters downtown take a card. I like the way George operated, a leader
not too proud to walk behind Adams in the first demonstration of a transfer
of power. Everything, precedent, until it wasn’t. So much remains unprecedented.
Until it doesn’t, it’s the law that only the dead shall be coined. The reasoning,
self-evident. We have no kings, no Blessed Leaders. A figure must be historical
to be coined by the U.S. Mint, though ideals have not stopped the garish from
minting themselves. In remembrance, I shake our real change now and again,
watch our presidents shift hard to the left and the right, like a small demonstration
of plate tectonics. I let my dead presidents pile up until they grow heavy, beg to
be taken to the coin machine at the bad Safeway up the street. I like taking up
a handful to serve to the machine—my fee-fi-fo-fum, come, smell the skin oil,
the metallic, come hear the onomatopoetic, the ringing of our metal as it slides.
A Michigan native, Jessica Cohn has made homes in Illinois, New York, and most recently, California, where she started a poetry practice. Gratitude Diary: Poems (Main Street Rag, 2024) is the debut collection from this long-time nonfiction writer. For more, please see jessicacohn.net.
Header photo by Milly, courtesy Pixabay.
