Only crocodiles issued from the ash.
One scrabbled from your mother’s numbered forearm 
to read stocks like palms in a Paramus office park. 
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Saturdays, you taught me to hunt foxes from the food court’s 
metal seats, tracking JV softball jerseys past the heat lamps 
as you sucked corn cobs threadbare. 
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Then, like any good survivor, 
you disappeared beneath a tide that winked 
with the gold links Mom had bought just to hold her. 
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I splashed Coke on your button-down 
to spoil your clean exit, my name 
wincing in the parentheses of your lips. 
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I disclosed your knuckles
to the court. Sold you downriver 
without auditing the ship’s vibrating hull—
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it must have been so crowded 
and your mother’s hand so cold. 

Published 9th March, 2026.
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Jason Schwartz is a crypto tax lawyer. His work has appeared in Poetry Online, Rat’s Ass Review, Cathexis Northwest Press, Beyond Words, Maudlin House, Dodging the Rain, and Toasted Cheese. He posts about crypto, taxes, cryptoart, and other things as @CryptoTaxGuyETH on X.

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