I meditate on money as I make
my way to work. I wonder how much stuff
a body needs in middle age, to break
away from office life. Is it enough
invested in a cottage, managed funds,
a quarter million working tax-deferred?
Can 55 survive on seven hundred
thousand ones, when college eats a third?

I ponder, after working four years more
than twenty in an accidental field:
how many minutes there remain for me.
I didn’t even mean a quarter score
but we matured in step and it appealed,
until today’s retiring fantasy.