Joanna Gilman Hyde

The Tomato-coloured Couch 6:11pm

I had to interrupt cooking supper

to write about laying out

four plastic Canadian fifties

for My Daughter’s allowance

allowing enough for a sports bra

to buy on a trip to Halifax

with Her Boyfriend

— $200.00 bucks flat out —

I was struck by the recollection

of a roll of American twenties

wadded into My Starving Palm

counted out in the bathroom

of a Japanese Piano Bar in New York:

— $200.00 bucks tootsie-rolled

into a promise to be taken

to Korea to do an art project

but delivered in a Waldorf  elevator

with the push

to accompany The Korean Minister of Defence

into His Room

where all I could do

was to declare

in plain English:

“There has been some mistake.”