David M. Alper

Hidden Currencies

There was a plum tree by the garage that bloomed
early once—an accident, the frost took it. For three days,
the yard smelled like sugar.

A blue bowl with a chip from being dropped, glaze
cobwebs at the edge. I ate cereal from it every morning
I spent alone that summer. No one ever inquired about
what I did with my days.

My nonverbal autistic sister put a crayon in my hand
when I wasn’t talking either—not to shut up, but
to shame. She made a sun with no sky to go around it.

There was this girl who whispered my name as if it were
a secret she had with her. I no longer remember what
she looked like. But the way she walked away when
I laughed too loudly.

I was in front of a painting in the museum of a woman
with a dead bird. Nobody else noticed that the eye of
the bird was open.

I remember the sound of my mother’s heels on tile before
she left for work. The ensuing stillness was not ungentle.

These are the things I never hung.
Never framed. Never said.
But they are there—like coins planted in the garden,
waiting for the child who will dig without knowing why.