The numismatist in the nursery
By Majekodunmi Ebhohon
I am sitting on the floor, a place
I only visit to retrieve a stray pen,
but today I am here to discuss
the history of currency
with someone currently
eating a purple crayon.
I hold a gold coin between my thumb
and forefinger,
tilting it so the light from the window
catches the profile of the Great King
stamped upon it.
I explain, with the patience of a man
who has seen the Nile rise and fall,
that men once crossed salt-burnt deserts for this;
that they sharpened swords
until they could split a hair
just to possess the weight I hold now.
It carries the marrow of a struggle,
the hinges of the bars of Kalakuta,
a life lived against the grain of the world.
The toddler, named Elf Sea or so,
looks at the coin, then looks at me,
a sticky jam stain sits on his cheek,
resembling a puddle in Ojuelegba.
He shows no care for the King’s profile.
He prefers the sound the coin makes
when he flings it into the metal trash can—
a sharp, hollow clink he finds hilarious.
He does not understand the alphabet,
he still negotiates the concept of pants,
yet remains convinced that his plastic rattle
is the superior instrument of power.
I try to tell him that before his rattle took shape,
a Giant stood in the town square
and saxophoned truths that hardened into this gold.
But the toddler points at the portrait of the Giant
and makes a sound like a flatulent goat.
Then, from the hallway, the older brother walks in—
the one who owns the rattle—and joins the fray.
He does not look at the coin either.
He informs me that his rattle is “viral”
and that the King on my coin has a funny nose.
He makes a remark about the King’s wife.
He learnt that, I believe, from a cartoon about talking sponges.
This is an amusing kind of headache:
trying to explain the architecture of a soul
to a group of people
still fascinated by their own saliva.
I put the coin back in my pocket.
It sinks like a lead weight in a paper boat.
The toddler tries to bite his toe,
convinced, in his small, loud, toothless mouth,
that the world began
the moment he woke from his nap,
and that anything older than his cereal
exists only as a myth
told by a boring man on the floor.
