Grandfather, the banker
gave bribes for scripted answers.
Buffalo nickels, two-dollar bills,
birthday silver dollars,
Kennedy fifty-cent pieces,
Mr. Hamilton's crooked grin.

What will you do with all of your money?
"Put it in the bank," I said my part.

All they did as a couple was yell.
Grandmother's garden
grew in messy tiers
of velvet purple/yellow pansies.

I jimmied her miniature safe
stuffed with greenbacks.
Somewhere in compost
she misplaced the key.

"Don't pay him any mind," she said,
ninety years, hands over her ears.