Robert Verdon, #408, Beyond Banking

walk into the bank and up to the counter

a smile forming on my lips as I walk up to

the counter

the counter with someone in green behind it

who is me in a mirror, and I am confused

(from a distance I look like a superannuated ’80s radfem)

till a lady comes up and serves me with a trace of apology, at

a computer on the kind of table once reserved

for

people to fill in deposit slips

not a counter at all

and I hope the shareholders are happy

but then this is the co-op Beyond Bank and I am a shareholder

and I head back to my friend absorbed in the bookshop

wondering how they stymie robbers

but then maybe I am just getting old

and I can’t

counter that

can I?