This month's budget looks good on paper,
but money talks with its mouth full
about the important things,
and the credit cards arrive in the mail
shaped like the shovels we need
to dig ourselves out of the next hole.
We say we're okay
but I still charge you in kisses,
plus tax.
Still make sure your laughter
is the biggest chip on the table.
We remind ourselves that happiness
isn't high stakes
and call it every time.
Just in case though,
I launder this surplus of one lines
and love poems in your lingerie bag
to keep in a cook book titled,
Nothing Butt Poems.
On paper it doesn't look like we won the lottery
but we've swapped money for moments like these:
a slow dance in the living room
while I whisper into your ear stories
about embarrassing things you did
and we turned red with laughter
while love accumulates its own interest.
Jon Tobias is a San Diego-based poet. His work has been published in anthologies by A Word With You Press, Local Gems Poetry Press, Quillkeepers Press, and White Stag Publishing.
Jon’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/metaphors_be_with_you/