Gilded gold, cold marble
columns on a spotless floor
a fountain pours water
from a Lion’s mouth,
a growling steady stream,
a basin with green scum,
plus two sunken pennies
smoothed by water.

Water like this doesn’t run
in every part of Detroit
because bills
are past due,
yet a river spills
from this Lion’s mouth
for just two pennies.

An award-winning poet from Detroit, Denise Sedman has been featured in San Pedro River Review, New Verse News, Nassau Review and Poets Reading the News. She is anthologized in the 2017 Nasty Women Poets by Lost Horse Press and Abandon Automobile, Wayne State University Press, 2011. She identifies as a senior woman with bipolar illness.