The Sacagawea Dollar

I’ve heard the bee

is dying out, i’bi mŭ

you called it

in Shoshone,

this summer

lacking the drone of

other years,

when it was the two 

of us for breakfast, your knife

serenely spreading

my singe of bread,

and love was a honey’s

dollop

ever-sticking to your hands,

diffusing its

clingy blessing

to everything you touched—

my nape of

neck

in the caress

of your farewell; a puppy’s

hirsute head

beside the stop; even the half-

smoked cigarillo—

burning on the sidewalk

while you stooped

to pick it up;

then plopped

into the butt bin

by the shelter,

its blink-out

like a sun before

its nova;

and the lucky coin

you dropped in lieu

of ticket, the sound of its

kerplunk, wondering who

will hold it next;

the stanchion you were

clutching as you rose,

swaying

as though you stood

in a canoe, offering

a seat to the girl

who boarded solo,

in a black and yellow

jacket

as though in costume

for a play, the one in which she’s

buzzing

with a throng of thirty others;

always on the brim

of precipice—a push here,

a kick there, a plucking

of her wings—

the bitter-

sweet of life

she’d worked so very

hard to give us.

Andreas Gripp

August 22, 2025

RF Image

Note: i'bi mŭ may be pronounced as ih-bee-muh