echoes from pushcarts scraping

at the turn of the century
that was not a turn of the millenium
an agency formed
with nickels and dimes
and from the machers a dollar
that helped a man be a man
arming a pushcart for war in the streets
while his wife did piecework
and hoped the factory wouldn't burn

the bigger the pushcart
the better the goods
the more the profits
the greater the need
the more the loan
the more numerous the cosigners
one man per hundred bucks

in the modern room
sat the ninety year old officer
and her eighty-five year old husband
completing the sentences
completing the forms
unchanged for a century
the supplicant and his cosigners
one cosigner per thousand bucks
a cosigner asks when the agency was founded
like the scraping of the wooden wheels
of pushcarts on trolley rails and cobblestone
the old couple smiles and answers
nineteen eighty four