The Growth Initiative

By Majekodunmi Ebhohon

    THE air is so thin today
    you could snap it
    like a dry biscuit.

    Across the road,
    a man is studying
    a pixelated ball
    with the devotion
    of a monk
    reading a holy scroll
    written by a teenager
    in a jersey
    he’s never met.

    He hasn’t eaten
    since yesterday,
    but he is very full
    in the logic of
    “almost.”

    He calculates
    the trajectory
    of a leather sphere
    to account
    for the holes
    in his own pockets,
    a math so advanced
    it trades
    the value of bread.

    The shops
    with the red
    and green lights
    are very kind.

    They take
    the crumpled notes
    for the light bill
    and give back
    a small slip of paper—
    a very portable,
    very flammable
    piece of hope
    that expires
    at the sound
    of a whistle.

    It is a generous way
    to live, really.

    Sending your offering
    to a man in a tower
    so he can buy
    a second boat
    for his second side-chick
    while you walk home
    to practice the art
    of being contented
    by the taste
    of your own spit.

    Even the ones
    standing across the street,
    the ones
    with their hands folded
    and their pockets full,
    are just watching
    the same clock
    with different eyes.

    They aren’t waiting
    for a whistle,
    but they are waiting
    for the man who is—
    hoping he wins enough
    to pay the debt
    he owes them,
    or at least enough
    to buy a loaf of bread
    from their empty stalls,
    and enough, perhaps, to keep
    him from noticing
    that their shop windows are
    made of breakable glass.

    We are all holding
    the same rope,
    just at different ends
    of the knot.

    When the red line
    on the screen
    stays red,
    the rose rises home
    with a detained monster
    that he eventually
    releases to his wife.

    The woman hasn’t done
    anything wrong,
    but she is the only one
    close enough
    to catch the noise
    of a ticket
    that didn’t fly.

    It’s a very efficient
    system of sharing.

    The man loses his coins
    to a screen in London,
    and the child in Evbomore
    pays the interest
    in the currency
    of a sudden,
    sharp word
    and a dinner
    that arrived
    as a sermon.

    In the end,
    we are all becoming
    quite light.

    Our wallets
    are empty enough
    to catch the breeze,
    and our eyes
    are fixed
    on a screen
    that promises
    to fix everything
    right after it finishes
    taking the last
    of what we have.

    We are the only fuel
    that must pay
    for the privilege
    of burning.

    A woman stands in line
    to buy the very ladder
    used to pull the floor
    from beneath her feet.