Missing Tokens
More than 4.3 million votes determined the new group of eight tokens.
The boot, wheelbarrow and thimble won’t appear in Monopoly starting fall 2017.
Not everything survives a vote.
Just ask the thimble, the wheelbarrow, and the boot.
But who really decides
what deserves a place in the box
and what will be removed?
The iron was retired at 76 years
but still exists in real life
to crowd tiny hotel closets.
Who says the thimble is obsolete? Useless
as the phone booth only seen now in Dr. Who.
Not me. I didn’t vote to blackball beloved tokens.
The game evidently
doesn’t care what I prefer.
Or feel my disdain
for changes in the board’s design.
Still I throw the dice and advance clockwise.
Buy where I happen to land.
Smile when I roll doubles.
Playing,
till I’m all out
of paper money.
Jacqueline Jules is a Northern Virginia author and poet. Her poetry has appeared in numerous publications including The Broome Review, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Hospital Drive, and Imitation Fruit. She is the author of three chapbooks, Field Trip to the Museum (Finishing Line Press), Stronger Than Cleopatra (ELJ Publications), and Itzhak Perlman’s Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press. www.jacquelinejules.com