Why The Economist Got A Divorce

 The economist got a divorce

Because she weighed

The pros and cons

She did some simple addition

And it became clear

That subtraction

Would be the better option

All her terms pointed

To separation

The sum of their marriage

Was a negative number

And rather than think

Of how far they’d come

She thought of how far back

They could go

If they kept moving

Forward together

What she always loved

About having a passion

For economics

Was how impersonal it was

Having passion for something

So dispassionate

Was just one contradiction

In her life

But the other was falling in love

With another woman

Who is terrible with money

Her wife isn’t so much

Bad with money
As she is bad at making it

And keeping it

Once she’s made it

But she understands it

She gets the concept of money

And why it has value

But she also finds it freeing

To be broke

And then run around broke

On a high of stress

And financial brinkmanship

This has made her, our economist

Very unhappy

Because it feels as though

Her best friend is fighting with her partner

Sometimes she imagines money

Talking to her

Telling her

That she needs to leave

And she agrees

But her wife is so beautiful

And such a beautiful person as well

And why should economics

Bring about the destruction

Of the love

That two people have

For each other?

It might be because

She sits at the kitchen table

And thinks about

How people with money

Wake up everyday

Not having to worry about money

And maybe they wake up

Worrying about other things

But most things

Can be tied back to

Whether or not

You can pay for something

Or pay for something

To be taken care of

Or pay someone else

To worry for you

But if you don’t have money

Or enough money

Than you wake up frozen

And she’s started to wake up

Frozen, her wife lying beside her

Sleeping soundly

Happily

A winsome grin

On her face

And she feels that anger

Bubble up

How can she sleep so soundly?

Doesn’t she know

We can’t pay

To sleep soundly?

The economist finds pennies

Around the house

And her wife tells her

That when she was young

Her mother would put pennies in a jar

With the label ‘Penny’s pennies’

Because her wife’s name is Penny

And everyone they know

Thinks that’s very funny

But pennies are worthless

And so is her wife

When it comes to anything

That would allow her

To sleep with a winsome grin

When the economist finds pennies

She throws them away

And doesn’t feel bad about it

Because they don’t own a jar

She could put the pennies in

And even if they did

There are better uses

For a jar

Five years after the divorce

She is walking along an empty street

Far too late at night

Because she couldn’t sleep

Even with the money

She had managed to save

Sleeping soundly in a bank account

And as she walks

She looks down near a grate

In the street

And sees something glint

And wonders

What it might be

Worth