Dollar Days

I

I miss the dollar days when, 
palms tattooed hexagonally,
dollar and I, foot after foot,
dust trailing my march: 

Afternoon. 
What you want?
A lollipop and two sweets. 
Look. 

The crawl back home; 
fingers fiddling through wrappers,
the crimson watermelon candy
hot red beneath that sack of light, 
ridges caked into that sphere. 

The first lick - sweetness, again. 
I needed nothing more. 

II

The alarm sounds for nine:
atop the breadfruit tree, her
feathers, silver as the dollar,
her eyes a blackened red, the
mourning dove’s call echoes
down the trunk into my ears.

Pastured on the riverbank, 
a cow chews cud as pensively
as he walks, strolling through
the dew-covered field.

An egret - wings akimbo -
dashes on the glass surface
of the river - rises with a mouth 
of crayfish - disappears into 
the blinding whiteness of the sky.

My grandmother grates her weed
broom through her hibiscus yard -
swish, swash, as she would my hair.

Mum!
You wake up? Come for your dollar!

I miss the dollar days.