Now that legal tender has
                   lost its tenderness,
And its very legality
             is so often in question,
It may be time to consider
the zero—
             long rows of them,
empty, black circles in clumps
                                   of three,
presided over by a numeral
                                     or two.
Admired, even revered,
these zeroes
               of imaginary money
capture
      the open gaze of innocents
like a vision of earthly paradise.

Now the zero has
a new name:
                            The Economy.

As for that earthly
paradise—well . . .