Loose Change

Pig. The ceramic one that stares at me

Frozen in time

Is still fed, when food is found,

But his expression

Is little altered

A decade has passed

Since his last oil change

The rubber seal left undisturbed

Until this morning                                                                   

And out it, they, pour

Metallic sounds

Like snapping branches

And small sounding cymbals

Announce the purging

Tanners, shillings, and half-crowns

Jostling, like children

For their place

Woe betide anyone who says to them

‘Loose change’

The Queen’s face will not be amused

There is a date that must not be spoken aloud

Valentine’s plus one, 1971

In a stroke, at midnight,

The pig became a museum

And its currency lost all purchasing power

Like all of us, sons of Adam,

Caught up in a Messiah on a cross

Brought into His death

Losing all our old purchasing power

And buried, out of sight

And now? The whole of creation

Stands on tip-toe

Waiting for the new currency

God’s loose change

Sons of God, to be revealed.