The Principal Loans Lunch Money

   by Kevin Miller


Maeve pays him in quarters,
these school lunches worth even less
within the sound of real coins. 
The quarters move to Rose for pizza
the last day before summer, her obligation 
the next loan after July and August pass,
the thought of quarters lost on him
until he faces the close of The News Hour 
that evening in June. It would take forty
quarters to close the eyes of the dead
soldiers whose faces appear in silence
with their hometown and age. 
He shouts their ages, 19, 21, 24, 32…
and from the next room, the woman
who refuses to watch the news yells, Stop. 
Forty pieces of silver to keep him from seeing 
his death in the eyes of the dead.