“The virus is slowing us down to the speed of poetry.” — Billy Collins

I feel like a piece of balsa wood,
light and pliable, just waiting
to be set on fire.
He’s snoring next to me, trying to light
the match even in his sleep.

I’m numb and stunned
by the magnitude of it all,
a cranberry floating in a bog of thoughts:
Will this be the Greatest Depression?
Will the dollar be worth less than toilet paper?

Should I buy gold?
You should have bought gold.
He grins in his sleep.
I can sense it; I think I can see it.
He has twelve ounces of gold

and sprinklings of silver.
He’s waiting for the bubble to burst
just so he can say I told you so
to all of those who thought he
was overreacting pre-Corona.

He teaches me the ways of Peter Schiff,
Gerald Celente and my insides drop like oil.
I don’t mean to scare you but…
I don’t want to scare you but…
is the only consolation.

It’s too late for that, I think.
It’s too late for me, I think.
Daisies, daffodils, bumblebees
are the only yellow things I carry, oh,
and the trees that go gilt at sunset,

to a metal, I cannot speak its language-
nor travel at its speed.
It’s funny. We do have one thing in common:
We value physical gold
both are natural, born of this Earth,

yet my kind oppresses you,
as the weight of yours crushes me.
I become William Jennings Bryan
screaming, “you shall not crucify mankind
upon a cross of gold!”

About the Author

Nancy Byrne Iannucci is the author of Temptation of Wood (Nixes Mate Review 2018) and Toxic, which will be released in 2020 (dancing girl press). Her poems have appeared in a number of publications including Gargoyle, Ghost City Press, Clementine Unbound, Three Drops from a Cauldron, 8 Poems, Glass: A Journal of Poetry (Poets Resist), Hobo Camp Review, Thimble Lit Magazine, and Typehouse Literary Magazine. Nancy is a Long Island, NY native who now resides in Troy, NY where she teaches history at the Emma Willard School.